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V V 



GREAT DISASTERS 



AND 

Horrors in the World's History, 

A GRAPHIC ACCOUNT OF THE NOTABLE CALAMITIES 
WHICH HAVE BEFALLEN MANKIND 

IN ALL AGES, BOTH UPON LAND AND SEA. 

EMBRACING 

THE LOUISVILLE TORNADO, FLOODS IN THE SOUTH, CHARLESTON EARTHQUAKE, 
JOHNSTOWN FLOOD, STORM ON THE COAST OF SAMOA, NOTED SHIPWRECKS, 
GREAT FLOODS IN CHINA, HOLLAND AND JAPAN. AND OTHER NOTABLE 
DISASTERS CAUSED BY STORM, FLOOD AND VOLCANIC ACTION, 

AND OF THE LAWS OF THE 

NATURAL PHENOMENA THAT PRODUCE THEM, 

COMPRISING 

THRILLING TALES OF HEROISM, CHEAT DESTRUCTION OF TOWNS, CITIES, HOMES 

AND LIVES, HEART-RENDING SCENES OF AGONY, DREADFUL SUFFERINGS, 

MIRACULOUS ESCAPES, DARING ADVENTURES, ETC., ETC., 

TOGETHER WITH 

NOBLE RESPONSES OF AID. 

TO WHICH IS ADDED 

AN ACCOUNT OF METHODS OF PREDICTION. 



By A. H. GODBEY, A.M., 

Author of "Stanley in Africa," " Light In Darkness," "Missions and Missionary Heroes," etc. 



SUPERBLY ILLUSTRATED WITH 150 ENGRAVINGS. 

PUBLISHED BY 

THE EXCELSIOR PUBLISHING CO., 

ST. LOUIS, MO. 



2 t4- 



Copyright. 

1890, 

W. L. HOLLOWAY. 

/ >r 



h 



PREFACE, 



Whatever be the ideas of the public upon a glance at 
the title page of this work, it is not intended to pander to 
the morbid desire for the sensational or horrible, charac- 
teristic of weak minds. This volume is not a literary 
morgue. 

Mankind is constantly astonished by reports of mishaps 
and disasters of manifold character, when there is seldom 
room for astonishment. A large proportion of the calam- 
ities reported from day to day are directly due to the 
haste, greed, and heedlessness of man himself, and need 
no comment. 

But there is a large class of disasters, due solely to 
meteorological or geological conditions, which surpass all 
others in magnitude and appalling destruction. In such 
cases men insist on prating about "mysterious visitations," 
as though these occurrences were subject to the dominion 
of no law. To an examination of such is this book 
devoted. 

When in school, the writer was often struck by the 

persistence with which even the most diligent students 

would call upon the teachers of physics and chemistry to 

suspend the recitation and devote the time to illustrative 

experiments. Physical Geography was constantly pro- 

iii 



IV PREFACE. 

nounced "very dry," because of the scarcity of oppor- 
tunities for illustration. 

The writer has endeavored to present in a form accept- 
able to the popular palate the general principles of the 
storm and earthquake so far as they are understood : and 
numerous narratives of great disturbances have been in- 
serted that a clearer conception of the magnitude of these 
agencies and their relative importance may be attained by 
the reader. 

Much care has been spent in "steering between Scylla 
and Charybdis." While it has been designed to avoid 
merely scientific data, there has been the equally delicate 
task of avoiding prolix narration and mere sensational 
tales. It is hoped that the result will be useful and 
interesting. 

If the book shall lead the reader to higher views of the 
reign of inexorable law in nature, and to a profounder 
reverence for the Author of Law and his works, the labor 
of its compilation will not have been spent in vain. 

A. H. Godbey. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

MYTHS OF THE WINDS. 

PAGE. 

Old Greek fancies — Their modern traces — Man seeking mysteries- 
Personifications— The "air-mothers" 17 

CHAPTER II. 

CONSTANT WINDS. 

Comparative climate — Expansive force of heat — Illustrations — The 
trade-winds— Effect of the earth's rotation — Return currents and 
calms 26 

CHAPTER III. 

PERIODIC WINDS. 

Modified trade winds — The monsoons— Local winds — Sea and land 
breezes— The simoom: its terrible effects— The khamsin, and similar 
winds — Moisture in the air: its effects— Rain and hail— Clouds : their 

varieties — Mountain winds 34 

« 
CHAPTER IV. 

TORNADOES AND CYCLONES. 

Unheeded law— Peculiarities of storms — Cyclonic storms — Theoretical 
Illustrations — A "cyclone hot-bed "—Traveling of a cyclone— Its 
curves in accordance with law — Features of the cyclone's path — 
Great cyclone of August, 1888— The planetary equinox theory- 
Objections to it— Safe predictions— Sun-spots— Mysterious provi- 
dences 48 

CHAPTER V. 

THE LOUISVILLE TORNADO. 

Perspective of news— Amusing conceits — Distress at the door — The 
tornado — Warning of the Signal Service — The storm strikes Louis- 
ville—Its course — Wreck of Falls City Hall — Rescuing the victims — 
Fire breaks out— Personal narratives— At the Union Depot 65 



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CHAPTER XI. 

GREAT SaMOaS HCRRTCA.YE. 

Germany and Samoa— Vabofb'fl vineyard -War breaks out — The assem- 
bled navy— Situation of the harbor -The hurricane — Fears of the 
natives — Vessels dragging anchors— Hudden wreck of the E^, — 
Magnanimous natives— The Adler overturned ■ of the 3" 

*>:c— Fouled by the O'ao. and run ashore— Crew rescued by the na- 
tives — The Vandal ia helpless — Bold feat of the Calliope cheered — 
Vandalia stranded— Many Drowned — At the last gasp — The Tren- 
ton drifts upon them— Defiance of the storm— The flag triumphant 

CHAPTER XII. 

ELECTRIC STORM-. 

Byron'g fire — Myths of the lightning— Causes of thunder storms — 
Strange freak3 of the lightning— Xumerous fatalities— Some curious 
cases— A lightning stroke a Divine favor— Thunder— Peculiar inci- 
dents—Lightning little to be feared — Foolish precautions— A M dys- 
entery conductor" wanted— St. Elmo's fire— Electric halos— Their 
part In history— The aurora— Popular myths — Aurora described '2-20 

CHAPTER XIII. 

RAIN", HAIL AND SSOW. 

Clouds and cloud shapes— The storm changes national destinies — 
Cloud halos— Specter of the Brocken— The "beautiful rain"— Amount 
of rainfall— Snow — Its ravages — Remarkable showers of hail— Prodi- 
gies 246 

CHAPTER XIV. 

FLOODS IS THE SOUTH. 

Rivers a universal problem — Character of the Mississippi— Failure of 
the levee system —The building of levees— Three great sections — 
Damage of overflows— Fighting for the levee— Storm on the river — 
Scene at a crevasse — The flood in the rural districts — In the city — 
Closing a crevasse — Refugees on the levee— Crooked streams o*>l 

CHAPTER XV. 

THE FLOOD OF 1890. 

Floods of other years — Warning of the Signal Service— The water ris- 
ing—At Greenville, Mississippi— The fight for the Morganza line — 
The waters win— Other crevasses— Extent of the damage— Objec- 
tions to levees — Levees versus outlets — Terrible floods in China — 
A proposed outlet— Reflection on present policy 290 



viu TABLE OF eo: ] 

CHAPTER XVI. 

:z- ----- - :■ :•:•: : 

The dam system of India— American -cheap goods and haste ~ — The 

!. :: -- ■ -..- . u z:. ~>~ z-..~ - — :: i - - ri : - — .*: z: -: : -• .-. f. •: >; — ~:.- 
:.~. : :.. --.e— A : : 1- "-- — -•" " -^- i- ;; — :.: ~ :.-- ~ -"-: " : :'. i 
more — The dam breaks — Terrible rush of the flood — An engine 
chased — A warning whistle — LoeomotzTes hurled abont lite to ja 

:-— :-:- »- -• z- ---• : _4 

CHAPTER XVTL 

rscnuyrs at joboestowv. 

-.:>- rr- :f:i-; :!:•>:: — I: : "-- — .-- zz:. •: ; :T-7.:t'::^- :~: 
— ■.:.-:'• - . - H --r: H - I 
D. M. Miners story: Mr. CaHixer's escaj -e : Dr. Beale and family— 
:.' - - - _• -.'it ■:: •-- r_. - ".: '.- : Mr 7. : -■-'- :. irr i:.-- : Zz.:z zzr- 
letter; the grief of the EarriTots 343 

: 

• 

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-•- - : - . r. " - : ; —.-:.:_* - z ' -r ■ " " — A . ' i'. : : z — 7i " - :ili 

i-" i r_ :rr:--- Ir :_: : r-r-r - — : : - _t : : — .-.. - :': ■ _ - ir • zi 
cities— Losses by the flood. .. 367 



chapt: 

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-"- -■ r - — 7. -_ - -7- - -- ir i:.; ; -__• ■_-_ — I.i:> friri — I:? 
frequent rarages— Fright— A romance of Florence . 384 



CHAPTER XX. 

THE TOLCAXO- 

; — ". :~\ — . 

pressure — Bain at eruptions — Lara, pumice, ashes and 
"--•■-—- • " : ': • - ; ■:' : ■ --- . - - z'-\-\ ■ - 

LaTa bubbles — Thriving adventure— Lost!— Theory of a molten 
earth— Objections to it— The earth cools slowly— Subsidence and 

1 at; '.oc— Distribution of volcanoes — Their work and forms— 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. IX 

CHAPTER XXI. 

GREAT ERUPTIONS OF VESUVIUS. 

Pompeii long buried — Excavations begun — A hermetically sealed 
city— Scenes in the town— Pliny's story— Hundreds stifled— Finding 
the bodies— Subsequent eruptions — Notable convulsion of 1538— The 
eruption of 1531, 1737 and 1793— Recent observations 421 

CHAPTER XXII. 

OTHER GREAT ERUPTIONS. 

Destruction of Sodom — Arguments — The pitch lake of Trinidad— 
^Etna: eruption of 1069— Thousands perish— Catania destroyed — 
Other outbreaks — Iceland: Mt. Hecla — Tremendous eruption of 
Skaptar Jokul— One-fifth of the people perish— Millions of cubic 
yards of lava— Disturbances in the sea— Jorullo: a mountain made 
in a night— Fearful outburst of Sumbawa — Twenty-six people out of 
twelve thousand escape — Explosions heard nine hundred miles — 
Other Malaysian volcanoes — Geysers — Terrible eruption of Cose- 
quina— Heard one thousand miles— Eruptions in South America — 
Force required to send out lava— In the Sandwich Islands — Kraka- 
toa : the greatest eruption in history — A chorus of volcanoes — Awful 
destruction— Perceived around the world — Unparalleled sea wave... 440 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

EARTHQUAKES. 

Myths of the earthquake — Ancient theories— Modern research — Earth- 
quakes and volcanic agency — Speed of a shock — The atmospheric 
theory — Earthquakes at particular seasons — The " planetary influ- 
ence" theory — Character of motions 481 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

EUROPEAN EARTHQUAKES. 

Legends of the flood— Sparta Destroyed— Bura and Helice engulfed — 
Numerous convulsions in Asia Minor — Antioch repeatedly destroyed 
— North Africa suffers— Calabrian earthquake of 1G93 — A tremend- 
ous convulsion in 1783 — Immense chasms— People swallowed up — 
Great landslides— Terrible catastrophe at Scylla— Ruffians amid the 
wreck — The great Lisbon earthquake— Its vast extent — Awful de- 
struction—Earthquake at Chio— In Switzerland— In Ischia — Dis- 
tressing scenes in the ruins -Disastrous shocks in Spain 496 



X TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXV. 

EARTHQUAKES IX THE UNITED STATES AND ENGLAND. 

All nature uneasy— The terrifying character of an earthquake— Signs 
and wonders—" El Gran Ruido," of Guanajuato— Frequency of earth- 
quakes—Earthquake in New England, 1638— A second in 1663— 
Shock of 1727- -Great convulsions of 1755— Damage and great alarm 
at Boston — " The end of the world I " — Great disturbance in the 
Mississippi Valley, 1811— Strange feats— The Charleston earthquake 
Numerous English earthquakes— Comparatively small loss of life... 535 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

EARTHQUAKES IN TROPICAL AMERICA. 

Shocks in Asia: lack of reliable information — The Andes region- 
Great earthquake of Riobamba— Humboldt's description— Numerous 
shocks in Venezuela— Catastrophe of Caracas — Effect on the sur- 
vivors—Frequent convulsions at San Salvador — Total destruction in 
1854 — Ruffians on the scene — Sudden disaster of Mendoza — Touching 
incidents— Faithful dogs— Shocks in Peru and gigantic sea wave — 
Numerous great shocks— The end of all things— The last man 563 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

PREDICTION AND PREVENTION. 

Futile efforts to control the future— Law neglected for superstition — 
Pretentious prophets — Humbugs— Laws of weather changes — Ac- 
tiors of animals — Methods for producing rain suggested — Earth- 
quake indicators— A force beyond control— Possibilities 589 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

THE REIGN OF LAW. 

Knowledge only from experience— Partial mastery by faith — Natural 
law the ruling force— Good and bad results of faith in the Supernat- 
ural — Sin punished — Ignorance punished — Examples — Man slow to 
learn — Eternal wisdom and goodness — Progress, past, present and 
future 600 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE. 

Cave of the Winds 18 

The Simoom 40 

Forms of Clouds 45 

Path of Cyclones 54 

Rotation of Storms 56 

Water-spouts at Sea 60 

Where the Storm entered Louisville 68 

Baxter Park, Louisville 71 

Falls City Hall 75 

At Work in the Wreck 78 

Main Street, between Eleventh and Twelfth, Louisville 82 

Union Depot, Louisville 85 

Eighth and Main, Louisville 90 

Corner Main and Clinton, Louisville 94 

Looking East from Tenth and Main, Louisville 96 

Corner Jefferson and Twelfth, Louisville 99 

On Ninth Street, Louisville 102 

Ruined Tobacco Warehouses 104 

View of Jeffersonville 10S 

Wall and Front Streets, Jeffersonville 109 

Wreck at Jeffersonville 110 

Tenth and Main, Louisville 112 

Looking West from Tenth and Main, Louisville 115 

View of the Residence District, Louisville 118 

Ruined Dwellings 121 

Path of Tornado, Olney, 111 124 

Scene at Olney, 111 126 

Whirlwind from Burnt Prairie 127 

Tornado followed by Rain Storm 129 

Instantaneous View of Tornado 130 

xi 



x ii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE. 

Tornado at Monville 132 

Watcr-spout at Sea 135 

Minnesota Tornado 137 

Sand-spouts in the Desert 139 

Cyclone, Fire and Earthquake, St. Thomas 145 

44 Drowning with its Terrible Roar" 147 

Hurricane in the Tropics 151 

Coast of India Submerged by a Storm 156 

44 He Sinks into Thy Depths" 160 

Cast Ashore 163 

Wreck of the Minotaur 167 

Wrecked on a Rock 171 

Castaways on a Raft 173 

Sinking of the London 177 

Storm on the Shoals, 1703 180 

On a Lee Shore 184 

Hovellers Relieving a Vessel 187 

The Life-boat 190 

The Life-boat at Work 193 

Bow of the Eber Cast Ashore 201 

The Adler on the Reef 204 

Samoans Rescuing American Sailors 207 

The Calliope, Putting to Sea 210 

Bow oi the Sunken Vandalia 214 

After the Storm 21S 

The Lyse Fiord 221 

Ideal Subterranean Storm 225 

Harvesters Killed by Lightning 232 

Land of the Aurora 243 

Field of Waterloo 249 

Specter of the Brocken 252 

Tropical Flood 264 

Making Mats for Levee Fronts 266 

Struggle to Hold the Levee 269 

A Mountain Torrent 271 

'• No Time forPrayin'!" 273 

Funeral During the Flood 275 

Breaking of the Levee 277 

Surprised by the Water 279 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Xlll 

PAGE. 

No so Romantic as it Looks ~ 282 

Telegraphing Under Difficulties 285 

Rescuing People 288 

Camps on the Levee 290 

Waiting for a Steamer 292 

The Search Light 293 

Scene at High Water 297 

Negroes Moving Out - 301 

Stock Raft 303 

Picking Up Refugees - 306 

Deserted Farmhouse 308 

Flood in China 312 

Dykes of Holland 316 

Relief of Leyden 318 

Breaking of the Dykes, Holland 322 

Map of Conemaugh Valley t 325 

Tbe Broken Dam 334 

Fleeing Engine 337 

Wreck of the Trains 340 

Mill Creek 345 

At the Stone Bridge 349 

Desperate Struggle 354 

The Gorge at the Bridge 358 

Battle with the Waters 3G2 

Johnstown After the Flood 371 

At the Morgue 376 

Conemaugh Viaduct 381 

At the Summit of Popocatepetl 397 

View in Active Crater 401 

Crater of Orizaba 405 

Eruption of Vesuvius 411 

Coral Reefs 418 

Destruction of Pompeii 424 

i 
Vesuvius in 1737 435 

Destruction of Sodom 441 

Destruction of Catania 446 

Mt.Hecla 450 

Jorullo 455 

Geyser 457 



XIV LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE. 

The Yellowstone Park 4G2 

Cattle in Volcanic Mud 473 

Convulsion on the Coast of Sumatra 478 

Effect of Earthquake on Masonry 484 

The Deluge 497 

Ruined Roman Colonnade 500 

Antioch 502 

Massive Architecture Wrecked, Asia Minor 504 

Ruins Near Cairo 506 

Ruins Near Nineveh 507 

Remains of Ancient Hebrew Masonry 509 

Great Earthquake in Calabria 511 

Destruction of Messina 513 

Disaster of Scylla 515 

Lisbon 517 

Earthquake at Lisbon 520 

Ruined Cathedral , 522 

Scene at Chio 524 

Panic at Casamicciola 529 

Earthquake in Andalusia 532 

Wreck of the Charleston Earthquake 538 

Houses Thrown into Ravine 542 

Wreck on King Street, Charleston 544 

Scene at Charleston 518 

Old State House, Charleston 551 

Charleston . 554 

Wreck of Factory 557 

Ruined Dwelling 560 

Earthquake in China 564 

After the Shock 568 

Scene at Caracas 571 

Ruins of San Salvador 573 

Fright at San Salvador 575 

Shock at Lake in Honduras 577 

Wreck at Mendoza 579 

Great Sea Wave 583 

Earthquake in Spain 586 



GREAT DISASTERS 



AND 



HORRORS IN THE WORLD'S HISTORY. 



CHAPTER I. 

MYTHS OF THE WINDS. 

" Gray in his mossy cave .iEolus stood 
Gazing in reverie at the distant sails, 
That skimmed the surface of the glassy deep, 
Unvexed by blasts of Eurus' boisterous whims. 
The restless winds in leash about their lord 
Full often murmuring, plucked his floating robe, 
Or stirred his tangled tresses with their breath, 
Impatient at the lack of wilder liberty/' 

QO sang the bard of the fabled cave of the winds. 
A-' Thus the old Romans and Greeks have taught us 
to think and to speak of the spirits of the air. Thus 
the very name of " spirit " was originally identical with 
" breath " or " wind." Those poetic old Hellenes ! They 
contrived to find something delightfully human in all the 
phenomena of nature. The woods were peopled with 
fauns and dryads. Around the bend of yonder rushy 
stream, a wary woodsman found a bathing nymph. Be- 
yond that rock Actseon saw the chaste Diana sporting in 
the crystal pool. Here is the spot where baffled Phoebus 
found his Daphne changed into a laurel tree. 

See you those stately poplars by the side of Italy's 
stream? There Phaethon's mourning sisters changed their 
fleshly robes for those green spires. From their waving 
boughs the cry of the kingfisher Alcyone reminds us that 

2 17 



18 



GREAT DISASTERS. 




MYTHS OF THE WINDS. 19 

halcyon days may yet be in store for the most unfor- 
tunate. The response hurled back from yonder cliff warns 
us to drop a tear for the poor nymph Echo, whose unre- 
quited love caused her to pine away till only a voice was 
left. To this day she answers every call, hoping to yet 
meet her love. That flaunting yellow flower is sprung 
from that very Narcissus who was so handsome he fell in 
love with himself. Ten thousand egotistic beauties of 
later days have not met so happy a fate. 

Hark ! was that the sea-shell of Triton ? Neptune 
approaches with his Naiad train. You may see the plunge 
of his dolphin steeds. And see ! what vision of incom- 
parable loveliness is that? It is Aphrodite, goddess of 
love — sprung from the foam of the sea — as fragile as the 
fleecy mass from whence she came ; as inconstant as the 
tossing wave on which she dances. How can love be 
otherwise, since she is its queen? In the sky above you 
see the beautiful Andromeda with the radiant Perseus. 
There Hercules yet wields his club and wears his lion- 
skin. And there — 

It is vanished. The disenchantment is complete. Mod- 
ern civilization has replaced the nymph with the peasant, 
and the faun with the brigand. The pipe of Pan is for- 
ever silent. Marsyas is revenged, for Apollo is no more. 
Jupiter dethroned Saturn ; Jupiter has long since been 
dethroned. Where are the hands that penned those beau- 
teous fancies ; the bards that sung the deeds of the gods ? 
Dust and ashes these two thousand years. 

Their works live after them. Passing centuries have 
not improved upon their lovely phantasies : it may be 
because they could not. Home has named the months of 
our year : Norway has aided to name the days of our 
week. Easter preserves the name of (Estara, Teuton god- 
dess of springtime, of new life, new light. So the names 



20 GREAT DISASTERS. 

of the winds remain. Auster, the south wind, has his 
memorial in Australia. Zephyr, the gentle west wind, is 
still a theme for poet's song. Rude Boreas, " blustering 
railer," will always find a home in the north. Civilization 
has not driven him from his domain. iEolus, the master 
spirit, most powerful because most delicate and beautiful, 
still stirs our wind-harps with his breath. The spirits of 
the air are as boisterous and untamed as in the days of 
./Eneas. 

And what figures would appeal more strongly to the 
imagination than these simple personifications? How 
can too great importance be attached to the part the winds 
perform in the economy of nature? Without them the 
land would become a Sahara ; the seas would be covered 
with a London fog. In the rustle of the breeze, as well 
as in the roar of hurricane, there is purpose and energy. 
The hand that guides one, controls the other. "He hold- 
eth the wind in his fists." 

In every age man's imagination has been strongly influ- 
enced by the mysterious or unknown. There is little play 
for poetic sentiment in the cold practicality of science. 
That which is clearly comprehended, loses half its charm. 
The botanist carefully plucks to pieces a flower; it is 
analyzed, and all its mechanism understood — but it is no 
longer a flower. The alchemist has produced the wonder- 
ful science of chemistry ; but the philosopher's stone and 
the secret of producing gold are forever numbered among 
the shadowy myths of the past. The explorer has roamed 
in countless climes amid a myriad perils : a thousand 
treasures has he given to the world : but his El Dorado 
and the Fountain of Perpetual Youth have become as a 
dream in the night And thus for aye will phantoms 
vanish as we grasp. Truth bears a magic wand at whose 
touch the unreal dies as a snowflake in a flame. All time 



MYTHS OF THE WINDS. 21 

has borne its legends of the risen departed, whose spirits 
roam the earth by night ; but we have not proved that the 
dead have done in six thousand years so much evil as the 
living in a single day. 

So one by one our cherished fables disappear. The 
steam-engine seems a thing of life ; but we do not find a 
hidden geni therein. Electricity, one of the youngest of 
man's practical discoveries, has become the most easily 
controlled.' The bolts of Jove are the prisoners of man. 
The river is harnessed to the mill and factory. But the 
winds roam as free as in the day of creation "when the 
morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God 
shouted for joy." Of all the forces of nature the wind 
and sea are least beneath control of man. The command 
"Subdue and have dominion" has not yet been fully 
obeyed. 

Small wonder, then, that a glamour of mysticism re- 
mains about the storm and its birth. Man finds himself 
in the presence of a power beyond his comprehension. Of 
the various elements of nature, the wind, the sea and the 
storm are more than ever the realm of fancy and awe. 
One often wonders at many other ancient myths; but 
there seems nothing surprising in the Grecian fancy that 
the winds were the spirit slaves of iEolus ; or in the 
Arabian thought, that storms were but the battles of won- 
derful genii, whose weapons were fire, water, and their own 
powerful breath. In the crash of the thunder the Arab 
heard their terrible strokes. The Northman beheld 
giants, contending now with each other, now with the 
giants of frost or of fire; now resting a moment in their 
cavern home — now chasing the clouds like frightened 
sheep from their realm of Mistheim. Some day all these 
powers would be arrayed in battle with the gods themselves, 
and Hagnarok, or universal chaos would follow. God 



22 GREAT DISASTERS. 

made man in his own image ; man has ever since endeav- 
ored to make all things in his own. So have the winds 
become personified in every age and land. 

Charles Kingsley has given us a beautiful picture of the 
"air mothers," and the part they play in the realm of 
nature. Compare the ancient with the modern. We now 
know the laws and the work of the winds ; but we have not 
found a better manner of picturing them. They are still 
the beautiful spirits of the air; the Peris of the upper 
deep, thoughtless in life, weeping repentant tears in the 
hour of their death. 

" Who are these who follow us softly over the moor in 
the autumn evening ? Their wings brush and rustle in 
the fir boughs, and they whisper before and behind us, as 
if they called gently to each other, like birds flocking 
homeward to their nests. 

"The woodpecker on the pine stems knows them, and 
laughs aloud for joy as they pass. The rooks above the 
pasture know them, and wheel around and tumble in their 
play. 

"The brown leaves on the oak-tree know them, and 
flutter faintly, and beckon as they pass. In the chattering 
of the dry leaves there is a meaning, and a cry of weary 
things longing for rest. 

" ' Take us home, take us home, you soft air-mothers, 
now our fathers, the sunbeams, are grown dull. Our 
green summer beauty is all draggled, and our faces are 
grown wan and thin ; and the buds, the ungrateful chil- 
dren whom we nourished, thrust us off from our seats. 
Waft us down, you soft air-mothers, upon your wings, to 
the quiet earth, that we may go to our home, as all things 
go, and become air and sunlight once again ! ' 

" The bold young fir seeds know them, and rattle impa- 
tiently in their cones. ' Blow more strongly, blow more 



MYTHS OF THE WINDS. 23 

fiercely, slow air-mothers, and shake us from our prisons 
of dead wood, that we may fly and spur away northeast- 
ward, each on his horny wing. We will dive like arrows 
through the heather, and drive our sharp beaks into the 
soil, and rise again, as green trees, toward the sunlight, 
and spread out lusty boughs/ 

" They never think, bold fools, of what is coming to 
bring them low in the midst of their pride — of the reck- 
less axe which will fell them, and saws which will shape 
them into logs, and the trains which will roar and rattle 
over them as they lie buried in the gravel of the way, till 
they are ground and rattled into powder, and dug up and 
flung upon the fire, that they too may return home, like 
all things, and become air and sunlight once again. 

"The air-mothers hear their prayers, and do their bid- 
ding : but faintly, for they themselves are tired and sad, 
and their garments rent and worn. Ah ! how different 
were those soft air-mothers, when, invisible to mortal 
eyes, they started on their long sky journey, five thousand 
miles across the sea. 

" Out of the blazing caldron which lies between the two 
New Worlds, they leaped up, when the great sun called 
them, in whirls and spouts of clear hot steam, and rushed 
to the northward, while the whirling earthball whirled 
them east. 

"So northeastward they rushed aloft, across the gay 
West Indian Isles, having below the glitter of the flying- 
fish, and the sidelong eyes of cruel sharks : above the 
canefields and the plantain gardens, and the cocoanut 
groves which fringe the shores : above the rocks which 
throbbed with earthquakes, and the peaks of old volca- 
noes, cinder-strewn : while far beneath, the ghosts of 
their dead sisters hurried homeward on the northeast 
breeze. 



24 GREAT DISASTERS. 

" Wild c'eeds they did, as they rushed onward, and 
struggled and fought among themselves, up and down, and 
round and backward in the fury of their blind hot youth. 
They tired themselves by struggling with each other, and 
by tearing the heavy water into waves ; and their wings 
grew clogged with sea-spray, and soaked more and more 
with steam. 

" At last, the sea grew cold beneath them, and their 
clear steam sank to mist ; and they saw themselves and 
each other wrapped in dull, rain-laden clouds. Then they 
drew their white cloud garments around them, and veiled 
themselves for very shame : and they said, ' We have been 
wild and wayward : and alas, our pure youth is gone. 
But we will do one good deed, yet, before we die, and so 
we shall not have lived in vain. We will glide onward 
to the land and weep there, and refresh all things with 
warm, soft rain, and make the grass grow, and the buds 
burst ; we will quench the thirst of man and beast, and 
wash the soiled world clean.' 

" So they are wandering past us, the air-mothers, to 
weep the leaves into their graves : to weep the seeds into 
their seed-beds, and to weep the soil into the plains : to 
get the rich earth ready for the winter, and then creep 
northward and die there. But will they live again, those 
chilled air-mothers? Yes; they must live again. For 
all things move forever : and not even ghosts can rest. 

" The corpses of their sisters piling on them from above, 
press them onward, press them southward toward the sun 
once more, across the floes, and round the icebergs — weep- 
ing tears of snow and sleet — while men hate their wild, 
harsh voices, and shrink before their bitter breath. They 
know not that the cold bleak snow-storms, as they hurtle 
from the black northeast, bear back the ghosts of the soft 
air-mothers, as penitents, to their father, the great sun. 



MYTHS OF THE WINDS. 25 

" But as they fly southward warm life thrills them, and 
they drop their loads of sleet and snow, and meet their 
young live sisters from the south, and greet them with 
flash and thunderpeal. Men call them the southwest 
wind, those air-mothers : and their ghosts, the northeast 
trade; and value them, and rightly ; because they bear 
the traders out a'nd back across the sea." 

So they live, and so they die, those beautiful air- 
mothers — for life is evermore fed by death. And in their 
wayward course they bring the early and the latter rain : 
that so long as time shall be, seed-time and harvest and 
and summer and winter shall not fail. And men love 
them, and welcome each in their turn, whether laden 
with the pure white snow, or the cooling moisture of the 
distant sea ; for man is a fickle creature, and remains con-, 
stant to none. In summer he sings of the Arctic winds ; 
and in winter, he longs for the breath of the south ; for 
like the air-mothers, his course is ever onward, seeking 
that which he has not. Yet, sometimes in his discontent, 
he would curse the soft air-mothers : but without them he 
could not live. But the bard knows them all, and will 
sing of their deeds till the sun waxes cold with the weight 
of years. 



CHAPTER II. 

CONSTANT WINDS. 

" Up from the sea I sprang, O voyager, 
Ere Aphrodite rose from out its foam. 
I am a banned, unresting wanderer, 
Doomed o'er the surface of the deep to roam 
Without being aged, o'erwhelmed with days, 
The end of being is my only dream. 
I trod the earth ere man's ephemeral race, 
And onward flee long as yon sun shall beam, 

Ever, forever, 

Here, and wherever, 
Turneth the earth, must I course forever ! " 

/T> HE phenomena of climate and seasons are too fami- 
-■- liar to need especial comment or description. They 
are dependent, in the first place, upon the annual journey 
of the earth about the sun, the inclination of the earth's 
axis to its orbit, and the distance of any particular region 
in question, from the equator. 

But the changes thus constantly made are greatly mod- 
ified by other factors. Chief among these agencies are the 
form and extent of the continents, their position relative 
to each other and the water areas, and the currents of the 
air and sea. 

Men usually identify climate with atmospheric condi- 
tions. A warm atmosphere is for them the whole of a 
warm climate : it is really but one of its factors, at most : 
it is often to be considered as a result, rather than a cause. 
On lofty plateaus, or in mountainous regions, the heat is 
not oppressive, even in the tropics ; but here the moderate 
temperature is due to the elevation. France is as far north 



CONSTANT WINDS. 27 

as Labrador ; but there is no similarity whatever in cli- 
matic conditions, as there should be, were climate depend- 
ent only on the heating of the local atmosphere by the 
rays of the sun. Who would think of instituting a com- 
parison of sunny Rome or Madrid with the city of New 
York ? Yet the three are nearly on the same parallel : 
Rome furthest north. So there is little resemblance 
between the warmth of sunny Florida and the scorching 
heat of the Sahara : or between the climates in those por- 
tions of our own Pacific and Atlantic coasts that lie 
between the same parallels. So we find that though there 
is a general relation between the climate of a region and 
its distance from the equator, there are many other con- 
ditions to be considered. First, let us note atmospheric 
currents and disturbances. 

"The wind bloweth where it listeth, and no man knoweth 
whence it cometh, or whither it goeth." 

"The world do move." The illustration so full of 
meaning two thousand years since has lost much of its 
force. The truth of yesterday is the error of to-day. The 
fact of to-day may be the phantasy of to-morrow. So it 
has come to pass that in our day the origin and laws of 
air currents are believed to be as well understood as those 
of any other forces in nature. Yet scientific theorists are, 
after all, divided on not a few points. 

Two general classes of winds are recognized : the con- 
stant, and variable. Constant winds are those that blow 
all the year in the same direction. The beautiful concept 
of Kingsley, in the preceding chapter, contains the leading 
points of our knowledge concerning them. 

All the various phenomena of air currents are depend- 
ent upon one unchanging law : that gaseous bodies — and 
all but two others — always greatly expand under the influ- 
ence of heat. There are two noted partial exceptions: 



28 GREAT DISASTERS. 

one of these prevents our globe from becoming a complete 
iceberg, and is as important as the law itself. Iron ex- 
pands, till its melting point ; but in its liquid state it 
occupies less space than when solid. Water contracts 
under the influence of cold, until the temperature of 39° is 
reached ; after that it expands : and when frozen occupies 
about one-eighth more space than before. This wise provi- 
sion of the Creator is second to none in importance, as 
regards its influence upon the climate of the earth at large. 
Had it been otherwise — did ice sink instead of float, our 
rivers and seas would in time become solid masses of ice; for 
water is so poor a conductor of heat, that its under-currents 
warm very slowly. Any one who plunges into a lake in 
mid-summer may often find the water warm at the surface, 
and of almost icy coldness a short distance beneath. The 
great Polar current comes down from Baffin's Bay, and off 
the coast of Newfoundland it plunges beneath the warm, 
lighter current of the Gulf Stream ; but it is not warmed 
by it. Registering thermometers detect its icy coldness 
almost unchanged in the realms of the tropics, far beneath 
the surface. 

Note some simple illustrations of the expansive force of 
freezing water. Every housewife knows that a bottle left 
full of water will burst when the water freezes. The same 
power is shown in the gradual disintegration of rocks by 
alternate freezing and thawing. Water freezing in the 
crevices bursts off small particles, or even large fragments ; 
so that rocks long exposed to the weather, crumble more 
or less. Every one is familiar with the appearance pre- 
sented by steep clay-banks, in late winter and early spring, 
of ragged masses and fragments ready to fall at any time. 
Still another instance of this destructive power is shown 
in the killing of vegetation by freezing. Plants are built 
of myriads of tiny cells. The moisture within freezes and 



CONSTANT WINDS. 29 

bursts the cell-walls, destroying the plant life. Certain 
plants have cells more elastic than others, which in conse- 
quence are not destroyed by freezing. But as an expanded 
cell does not readily shrink to its former size, subsequent 
freezings, when the cell contains more water than before, 
may finally destroy it. So wheat is " winter-killed," by 
too frequent freezing. So globes of steel may be burst by 
this force. 

To show the poor qualities of water as a conductor of 
heat, take a long glass tube and fill with water. Then 
put a piece of ice in one end. The water at the other end 
may now be brought to the boiling point by means of the 
flame of a lamp, ere the ice at the other end is melted. 

Every one is familiar with the fact that heated air rises ; 
but not all inquire why it does so. Take a foot-ball or 
bladder and partially inflate it ; then hold it near a hot 
fire, and it may be swollen almost to bursting. Now, there 
is no more air in it than before ; and if it be laid in a cold 
place, it will shrink to its first inflation. This shows how 
great is the expansive power of heat on the atmosphere. 
The same weight occupying a much larger bulk, we per- 
ceive that heated air is much lighter, and must rise. 
This, then, is the cause of what are known as constant 
winds. 

As the earth revolves on its axis, the air is unequally 
heated, that nearest the equator becoming the warmest, in 
consequence of its receiving the most direct rays. Here, 
then, the air rises most rapidly ; while the cooler air to 
the north or south must flow southward or northward to 
fill the vacuum. Now, the earth turning on its axis from 
west to east, whirls the northward and southward currents 
to the westward, so that they appear to blow from the 
northeast and southeast. The result of this loss of direc- 
tion is gradual ; so that when first perceptible, they are 



30 GREAT DISASTERS. 

almost from a due northerly or southerly direction. As 
they near the equator, they are more rapid, and turn more 
decidedly to the west, never becoming violent, however; 
rarely exceeding fifteen to eighteen miles per hour. 

It would appear that at the point where these meet each 
other, or come in contact with the ascending warm current, 
there must be a region of calms or light, variable winds, 
and occasional tempests. Such, in fact, is the case. This 
belt is from two hundred and eighty to four hundred miles 
in width, and lies along the thermal equator, or line of 
greatest average heat. This is not the same at the earth s 
equator, properly so called ; for, as the land has greater 
capacity for absorbing and retaining heat than the sea, 
and as most of the land lies in the northern hemisphere, 
it is evident the highest mean temperature must be north 
of the equator. »So this belt of calms must lie in the same 
region ; and, in fact, in the Atlantic ocean it lies between 
3 and 9° north latitude, and in the Pacific, between 4 and 
8°. As the sun travels northward during the first half of 
the year, this region of calms shifts slightly, also, so as to 
always nearly coincide with belt of the greatest mean heat. 

At first sight, it appears curious that the motion of the 
earth should deflect these winds to the west. It would 
appear that the earth, atmosphere and all, must revolve as 
a unit about its axis ; else, if the atmosphere lose time, its 
speed to the westward should be constantly accelerated, 
and long ago should have reached a velocity that would 
shake the mountains themselves; while, in fact, there is 
no variation perceptible. 

It should be remembered that at the equator the earth is 
about twenty-four thousand miles in circumference; and 
as one complete revolution is made every twenty-four 
hours, a point on the equator is carried eastward at the 
rate of one thousand miles an hour. But if a circle be 



CONSTANT WINDS. 3 1 

drawn around the earth parallel to the equator, at some 
distance from it, it is at once seen that any object in this 
circle, having a shorter distance to traverse, is carried east- 
ward at a slower rate ; so that a point only a few yards 
from either pole must necessarily advance but a few feet 
per hour. So then, a body of air moving from either pole 
toward the equator, must needs advance very slowly if the 
friction of the upper reverse currents and of the surface of 
the globe are to have opportunity to overcome its relative 
inertia and give it the same velocity as that of any point 
over which it may pass. 

Now, in the case of these constant winds, the inertia is 
very nearly overcome, as they start from a circle in which 
the velocity to the eastward is about 750 miles per hour. 
If the inertia were fully overcome, there would be no per- 
ceptible wind; as the velocity is actually but fifteen to 
eighteen miles per hour, it appears that the friction en- 
countered actually destroys from thirteen-fourteenths to 
fifteen -sixteenths of the inertia. Hence, we find these 
constant air currents toward the west are, in reality, the 
result of the earth carrying any object on its surface a 
little more rapidly than the atmosphere moves; so that 
these winds are precisely the same in principle as the 
well-known fact that when you run rapidly in still air 
(so-called), it seems that the wind is blowing directly in 
your face. 

In like manner, it appears that a wind from west to east 
is merely an air-current moving a little more rapidly than 
the earth revolves at that point. The relative difference 
between the velocity of air-currents must vary greatly ; 
for a violent easterly or westerly wind very near the 
poles may equal or even exceed the speed of the rotation 
of that point ; while the most violent tropical storms aver- 
age between one-twentieth and one-eighth of the local 



32 GREAT DISASTERS. 

rotation. The latter is not often exceeded. But whatever 
the relation of the respective velocities, it is clear that the 
velocity of the wind in general must depend largely on 
the amount of air abnormally heated, and upon the rapid- 
ity with which it is heated. So men have come to recog- 
nize that a period of unusually oppressive heat forebodes 
a storm of some sort. But few regard the unusual warmth 
as a reason of the storm. They are linked, in the popular 
mind, as antecedent and consequent, rather than as cause 
and effect. 

These constant winds near the equator have been named 
trade-winds, because of their importance to commerce. 
Unknown before the first voyage of Columbus, they filled 
the minds of his crew with fear that they could never 
return home, if the wind blew always in one direction. 
The same gentle wind bore Magellan in his voyage around 
the world, and caused him to give the name of " Pacific," 
or " peaceful," to the great ocean on our west ; and the 
same steady breezes made the fortune of many a noble 
galleon in the days when Peru was an Ophir, Mexico an 
El Dorado, and the Philippine Isles a Tarshish where 
they took shipping for the distant land of gold. 

Owing to the fact that the continents intercept the reg- 
ular trades by reason of their elevation and irregular 
conformation, and also because of their much greater spe- 
cific heat, whereby they set in motion many other local 
currents, the trades are found to begin only a considerable 
distance to the west of the continents. Yet the influence 
of the trades is sufficient to make easterly winds the pre- 
vailing ones on the great inland plains : as in the Sahara, 
Arabia, Southern Siberia, and portions of North and South 
America. 

It is clear that other nearly constant currents must exist 
to supply the vacuum that would be otherwise caused by 



CONSTANT WINDS. 33 

the trades. These are found to the south and north of the 
trade belts, and, as might be expected, blow nearly in the 
opposite direction, being descending currents; while the 
trades, as before stated, are ascending. The column of 
hot air from the equator starts toward the poles above the 
trades, while a polar current sets in toward the equator ; 
but as the amount of air displaced at the equator is by 
far the greatest, much of it can, of course, never reach the 
poles. On meeting the polar current, the two partially 
mingle and descend, forming what is called the return 
trade. This blows, most of the year, to the southeast, the 
equatorial current prevailing and coming from a region 
whose easterly rotation is more rapid. At certain seasons 
of the year, however, the polar current prevails to some 
extent, though not sufficiently to overcome the eastward 
trend ; so the wind in this belt blows alternately to the 
southeast and the northeast. 

Between the region of trades and alternating winds is a 
belt, on either side of the equator, of calms and variable 
winds, which shift northward or southward, parallel to 
the belt of calms between the trades. These two zones, 
however, are much less clearly defined than the great 
central one, and are not liable to such extraordinary dis- 
turbances. 

Such is the great constant wind, with its dependents 
So long as the sun has warmed the earth, it has hurried 
on its course, subject to unceasing law, and destined to 
cease only when the heavens and the earth shall pass 
away, and chaos or annihilation shall end the things that 
be. A Wandering Jew of the atmosphere, it flies ever 
onward, bearing the merchant to his port, and the rain- 
cloud to the land ; ever and anon desolating the isles with 
its bursts of fury ; then resuming its restless course, like 
the remorseful Salathiel. 



CHAPTER III. 

PERIODIC WINDS. 

" Earth has each year her resurrection hours 
When the spring stirs within her, and the power* 
Of life revive ; the sleeping zephyrs rouse, 
The blushing orchards clothe their naked boughs, 
The swallow skims above the lakelet's verge. 
Swift summer speeds with fire in every vein, 
And autumn's glories crimson hill and plain. 
Then warmth and life from Nature take their flight, 
And winter robes her in a shroud of white, 
While mournful Boreas chants her funeral dirge." 

QO the seasons tread their ceaseless round in the tem- 
A-^ perate tones, and to a certain degree in the colder 
regions of the earth. But when we examine the change 
of seasons in the tropical world, we find a state of things 
so different that we are at once led to inquire the reason : 
and it will be found primarily in certain periodical winds. 
When the sun is north of the equator : that is, while 
our northern summer is in progress, India enjoys a steady 
sea wind from the southwest, which bring a rainy season 
to the corresponding coasts of Hindostan and Farther 
India. When the sun returns to the south, the winds set 
in from the opposite direction, coming down across the 
great upland plateau of Central Asia, sometimes called, 
from its immense height and extent, the "Roof of the 
World." These periodic winds are called monsoons: a 
corruption of the Arabic word Ifoussin, season. They are 
in reality a modification of the trade-winds. 

A glance at a map will show that the northern half of 
the great Indian Ocean is enclosed by land masses as no 

34 



PERIODIC WINDS. 35 

other large body of water is. Consequently, while in the 
southern section the southeast trade is present, the north- 
east trade of the northern part is so modified by the sur- 
rounding land areas as to almost entirely lose its distinctive 
character. Hence, most tropical regions have, properly 
speaking, but two seasons : the rainy, and the dry. As 
the clouds swept in meet with an intensely heated region, 
the trade never chills them sufficiently to produce snow, 
except in extremely elevated regions. 

This is the direct cause of the monsoons : During the 
northern summer, southern Asia, being under the rays of 
the vertical sun, becomes intensely heated ; and the cooler 
and denser air of the adjacent ocean, and of southern 
Africa, flows towards it, producing the southwest monsoon, 
which lasts from April or May to September or October. 
The time of its beginning and its close varies in different 
latitudes, according to the time at which the sun is vertical 
in each. 

During the southern summer, southern Africa being 
under the vertical sun and intensely heated, the cooler air 
of the surrounding seas, and of southern Asia, flows 
towards it. This produces the northeast monsoon, which 
lasts from October or November to April. This monsoon 
is, in fact, only the regular northeast trade-wind somewhat 
intensified. 

A similar exchange takes place between Asia and Aus- 
tralia, but it is less marked, owing, perhaps, to the great 
islands lying between these continents. 

The period of transition of the monsoons, in spring and 
autumn, is marked by sudden and violent gales, and ter- 
rific thunder storms. Destructive hurricanes, also, are of 
frequent occurrence. This corresponds with the period of 
equinoctial storms in higher latitudes. 

There are narrow monsoon belts in the Atlantic, along 



36 GREAT DISASTERS. 

the coast of Africa and of Brazil, also on the Pacific coasts 
of North and South America ; but the phenomena they 
exhibit are of a much less striking character. On the 
African coast, in general, the winds blow from sea to land 
in summer, from land to sea in winter ; on the Brazilian, 
the wind is from the northeast in summer, while in winter 
the southeast trade resumes its sway. The monsoons of 
the Pacific coast of America blow from the northwest and 
north during the southern summer ; from the southwest 
and south during the northern. The regular trade-wind 
makes itself so strongly felt in northern Brazil, which is 
unusually level, that a boat can sail almost as rapidly up 
the swift current of the Amazon as it can row down : and 
Humboldt records that he found it of great strength at 
the foot of the eastern slope of the Andes. 

Another modification of the northeast trade is found in 
the Etesian winds of Greece and the adjacent archipelago. 
This is a true intermittent trade, blowing only in the day- 
time, however, and lasting from July to September. The 
cool air of the peninsula rushes toward the extremely 
heated regions of the Mediterranean and north Africa. 

Somewhat similar are the northers, or blizzards, of our 
Western States. By the laws already given, it is seen 
that northerly winds can prevail in any region only when 
some region further south is unusually heated. Now, the 
northern portion of America may be roughly compared to 
a trough. The cold polar current sets to the southward 
across the continent, and is turned to the east by the Rocky 
Mountain range, giving it a general southeast course. 
Hence, when the southern summer is in progress, our 
prevailing winds are from the northwest ; and when the 
heated portion of the world is north of the equator, we 
have the return trade, giving us as our prevailing wind 
that from the southwest. When our return trade is unu- 



PERIODIC WINDS. 37 

sually prolonged, we have a late fall ; and if the southern 
summer is unusually warm, we have the polar current 
longer than usual, and a late spring in consequence. The 
polar current seldom make3 its presence felt beyond the 
Texan plains ; though occasionally it reaches the Mexican 
plateau, or sweeps across the Gulf to the Antilles. 

A similar cold wind from Central France toward the 
Riviera is locally known as the Mistral. The cold winds 
from the south, which in crossing the plains of Patagonia, 
are turned eastward by the Andes, are called in Uruguay 
the pamperos, as their direction causes the popular belief 
that they originate in the pampas, or grassy plains. In 
Malta the cold wind becomes known as the gregale — in 
the Adriatic sea it is the tramontana ; in Trieste and 
Dalmatia it is the bora. In New Zealand the correspond- 
ing cold blast comes from the south, and is known as the 
buster. When loaded with drifting snow, as in the bliz- 
zard of the United States, the cold wind of the Yenisei 
Valley, in Asia, is locally called the purga ; in the steppes 
of Central Asia it is the bura. 

Eastern Asia receives its prevailing cold current from 
the northwest; while western Asia and Europe receive 
their cold wave from the northeast, there being no range 
of mountains, as in America, to deflect the current, as the 
polar currents are disposed to follow the continents, having 
their origin in arctic lands ; while for a similar reason the 
return trades reach their extremes on the ocean. Hence, 
lines drawn through the places which possess the same 
mean annual temperature reach a higher latitude at sea 
than on land. 

These are the chief periodical winds of long periods. 
There is one other class to be noted : the diurnal land 
and sea breezes. These occur along all coasts, whether in 
the zone of trades or of variable winds; but the phenom- 



38 GREAT DISASTERS. 

enoii is more strongly marked in the tropical regions, and 
in the summer of the temperate latitudes, because of the 
greater difference in the temperature of land and sea by- 
day and by night. 

During the hottest part of the day the air over the land 
frequently reaches a temperature of 100° Fahr., and even 
more, while that over the sea rarely rises above 80°. Dur- 
ing the night the land radiates its heat with such rapidity 
that, towards morning, its atmosphere may be from 10° to 
to 15° colder than that of the sea. 

Soon after sunrise, the land being warmer than the sea, 
a sea breeze sets in, which increases in force until about 
three o'clock, when the difference of temperature is great- 
est. It then gradually diminishes until about sunset, 
when, the temperature of the land and sea having become 
equal, the atmosphere is at rest, the calm continuing for 
an hour or more. 

Soon the land becomes cooler than the sea, and a gentle 
breeze from the former sets in. It increases in force as the 
night advances, becoming strongest a little before morn- 
ing, when the temperature of the land is lowest; after 
which it rapidly dies away, and is succeeded by a calm, to 
be soon replaced by the sea breeze. 

One other species of variable wind is to be noticed : the 
hot, dry, dust-laden blast from desert regions. Such 
occur more or less periodically, and are known by different 
names in different localities. 

Tom Moore has told us that " love's witchery " on the 
heart is 

" Like the wind of the south o'er the summer lute blowing, 
That hushed all its music, and withered its frame." 

The reference is to the simoom of Syria and Arabia. One 
who has not experienced this wind can have little idea of 
its oppressiveness. Apt to come at any hour during the 



PERIODIC WINDS. 39 

hottest months of the year, with a temperature so great 
that a piece of silver exposed to it becomes hot enough to 
blister the flesh, and laden with the impalpable dust of 
the desert, vegetation is scorched and withered by it, and 
animals flee from it as from the pestilence. It may last 
but a short time : it may endure several days. 

At the first indication of its approach, people flee to 
their houses : doors and windows are shut and every crevice 
that could allow any dust to enter is tightly stuffed : while 
the wind lasts no one ventures out. Such unfortunate 
animals as happen to be overtaken by it have literally to 
struggle for their lives. The wind is not steady, but comes 
in fitful gusts, sometimes differing as much as 20° in tem- 
perature. The streets are deserted ; and were they other- 
wise, a person could hardly be seen at a few yards distance. 
Hours pass : that implacable enemy, the dust, sifts in at 
unknown chinks. By degrees it covers everything. Val- 
uable lace and tapestry are nearly ruined. You put on a 
skull-cap ; yet it penetrates your hair. It finds its way 
beneath the garments to the skin, producing distressing 
dryness and roughness. The lips parch and crack. The 
eyes are red and inflamed. You driuk as if famished, 
and gasp for breath. You are excessively irritable ; you 
reach the verge of complete nervous prostration. At 
length the ordeal is over. You creep into the street, to 
find your neighbors looking like corpses ; some, it may be, 
actually dead from nervous exhaustion. Dead birds and 
animals lie on the earth. It is a case of the survival of 
the fittest. You pluck a leaf from a neighboring tree ; it 
crumbles to dust in your grasp. 

Such are the effects of an unusually protracted wind, 
even when most favorably situated to encounter it. But 
if a caravan be overtaken by such in the desert, happy 
are they who escape. The camels kneel and thrust their 



40 



GREAT DISASTERS. 




flillllliMBiliiiM 




PERIODIC WINDS. 41 

noses into the sand, against each other, into a pack of 
goods — anywhere to avoid breathing that poisonous blast. 
The men throw themselves upon the ground behind the 
camels, and muffle their heads in their garments. The 
storm is at hand ; perchance attended by whirling columns 
of sand. You raise your head : a thick, dun-colored cloud 
flies at you ; a heat as of red-hot iron, it seems, holds you 
in its choking grasp. You find your way to your water 
bottle, and drink deeply. The lurid sun turns the sweep- 
ing columns of sand to pillars of fire. Superstitious fear 
seizes your Arab comrades. Gradually the storm passes 
on : the men pick themselves up and endeavor to shake 
the irritating dust and sand from out the folds of their 
clothing, and the party resumes its way, happy that they 
are not numbered among the dead whose bones are bleach- 
ing by the way. Tales are not wanting of great caravans 
completely overwhelmed by the sandstorms of the desert. 
These storms are met with in their greatest severity 
in Egypt and Arabia. In Egypt, this wind is called the 
Khamsin, or fifty, referring to the period of fifty days — 
the latter part of April, May, and early June — when they 
may be expected. They never blow through the entire sea- 
son : rarely so long as fifteen days at a time. In Arabia the 
simoom may travel from the center of the peninsula toward 
any point of the compass ; the Khamsin of Egypt blows 
from the southwest. Winds of the same character cross 
the Mediterranean. In Spain the wind is known as the 
Solano, or Levanter, or Leveche : in Sicily and Italy it is 
the Sirocco. The distressing dryness is somewhat modified 
by the journey across the Mediterranean. The same wind 
in Syria is called Samiel; and a similar wind which blows 
from the Sahara southwest to the Guinea coast is called 
the Harmattan. In California a similar dry hot wind blows 
from the interior toward the coast, during the hot season, 



42 GREAT DISASTERS. 

and is called the desert wind. Such occasional hot blasts 
are experienced in southeastern Dakota, coming from the 
" bad lands," or sandy and rocky wastes along the upper 
Missouri river. 

All these periodical or varying winds may be very 
properly, from their time and character, be called the 
season winds of the earth, as another means of distinction 
from the constant trades : as they in part bring changes 
of season, and in part are brought that way. 

Into the question of climate and seasons one other 
element enters, of especial importance in regard to those 
disturbances of the regular winds, which we call storms. 
That factor is the quantity of moisture in the atmosphere, 
and the consequent rainfall or snowfall of a region. With- 
out this element, the phenomenal disturbances known as 
tornadoes would hardly occur : or if they did, there would 
be greater difficulty in ascertaining their approach. 

Water, in its vapor state, is but three-fifths the weight 
of the air, and in consequence rapidly rises. This evap- 
oration, as it is called, goes on at all times : even when the 
water is frozen. A very thin sheet of ice, hung in the 
open air, will finally disappear, even though the tempera- 
ture be always below freezing. 

Now, all the phenomena of rain, snow, and hail, that 
are brought by different seasons, in different climes, depend 
upon a single simple law : that warm air can hold a much 
greater quantity of vapor than cold air. The amount of 
moisture that may be held in suspension at different tem- 
peratures is as follows : 

Temperature Weight of vapor in a cubic Temperature Weight of vapor in a cubic 
of Air. foot of saturated air. of Air. foot of saturated air. 

20 deg. Fahr. 1.30 grains Troy. 70 deg. Fahr. 8.00 grains Troy. 

32 " " 2.13 " " 80 " " 10.95 " " 

50 " " 4.09 " " 90 " " 14.81 " " 

62 " " 6.15 " " 100 " " 19 79 " " 

This gives a second reason why storms of wind and rain 
closely follow extremely hot weather. 



PERIODIC WINDS. 43 

Now, as the vapor is so much lighter than the air, their 
mixture must also be lighter. So any unusual amount of 
moisture is at once detected by the barometer, an instru- 
ment for measuring the pressure of the atmosphere. If 
the air grow moister, and therefore lighter, the barometer 
tails ; a storm is approaching. 

Since cold air can retain but little moisture, if a warm 
moist current be chilled, it must lose a part of its vapor, 
which at once falls to the earth as rain. If the cold be 
somewhat greater, the moisture is crystallized into snow. 
Greely's observations at Fort Conger show that, varied a 
are the forms of snow crystals, those that fall during any 
particular storm are invariably of the same types, even 
though they may be collected from localities widely re- 
moved from each other. All crystals of snow are hexag- 
onal in plan, but there is much variety in detail. The 
laws that produce one variety at one time, and a second at 
another, are not yet known. 

The subject of hail is a peculiarly perplexing one to the 
meteorologist. Hailstones are more or less spherical in 
form, and are made of alternate layers of soft opaque ice, 
and hard clear ice. It is evident that they must acquire 
this structure by being whirled about between clouds of 
different temperature and density. Some have supposed 
that they are formed in a whirlwind, whose axis is horizon- 
tal, but for the present we must be content with Lord Dun- 
dreary's explanation, for " it ith one of thothe thingth 
which no fellah can underthtand." 

Raindrops from a great height are larger than those 
from below, for they increase as they pass through the 
vapor-masses. As the warmest currents are also the 
highest, it will at once be understood why warm and trop- 
ical rains fall in large drops, while drizzling rains, mists, 
and fogs are characteristic of cold regions and cold seasons. 



44 GREAT DISASTERS. 

The masses of more or less condensed vapor in the 
upper air currents are what are known as clouds. Their 
various forms and appearance are shown in the cut on 
the — page. 

The cirrus and cirro-cumulus clouds are the highest, 
are mostly in the altitudes of perpetual frost, and are sup- 
posed often to consist of minute ice crystals. In temperate 
latitudes they are usually formed in, and move with, the 
upper air current, or return-trade from the tropical 
regions. 

The cumulus clouds are characteristic of the tropics, 
and of the summer days in middle latitudes, their height 
depending upon the relative humidity of the air. They 
are formed by local ascending currents, which carry a 
large amount of vapor into the cooler upper air. There the 
vapors are condensed, and are gradually heaped up into 
those heavy masses of sharply denned clouds,, which look 
like vast snowy mountains. Their base is horizontal, and 
marks the height at which the dew point is reached and 
condensation begins. 

The accumulation of vapors is often so great that these 
clouds form a column several thousand feet high. In this 
case the difference in the temperature and the electrical 
conditions of the upper and lower portions is such that 
electrical discharges takes place, accompanied by condensa- 
tion of a portion of the cloud, forming a thunderstorm. 

Stratus clouds are most frequently seen in the morning 
or evening, and are always low. They are formed by the 
descent of the higher clouds and vapors of midday into 
the lower air as the temperature decreases. They are more 
frequent in winter and summer than in the intermediate 
seasons. 

The nimbus cloud is more dense and heavy than the 
others, which may all be transformed into the nimbus by 



PERIODIC WINDS. 



45 





f 'III 




46 GREAT DISASTERS. 

a diminution of temperature. It is of a dark-leaden hue, 
changing into grey. This is the most common form of 
cloud in polar latitudes ; and, during the cold season, it is 
the most frequent of the temperate zones. 

If a moist current cross a mountain range, it loses its 
moisture in the cold region, and growing narrower as it de- 
scends the other slope, presents the phenomena of a warm 
dry wind from the mountains. Thus the wind that brings 
rain to Norway, gives warm fair weather to Sweden. Of 
the same character are the hot winds of Switzerland, called 
Foehn winds, and the Chinook winds which blow from the 
eastward into Idaho, Washington, and western Montana. 
Similar winds occur occasionally in South Africa, Aus- 
tralia, New Zealand, and Peru. These hot winds must 
not be confounded with the hot and poisonous winds from 
desert regions described before. 

Such, in fine, are the noted varying intermittent, or 
periodic winds. However uncertain they may appear at 
first thought, they are obedient to the same unchanging 
laws that bind the universe into one harmonious whole. 
No doubt the ancients, if they had been acquainted with 
their office, would have personified them as the nymphs of 
the seasons. But, knowing naught of the wonderful 
immutable laws that bind them, they could only say to 
each, 

" We know not whence thou com'st, or whither goest, 
When round our homes thy wizard blast thou blowest." 

In eternal law and harmony they found only endless 
confusion and wild caprice. Man interpreted nature by 
man. 

Yet they are the angels of the seasons, these air-spirits, 
sent by an allwise Providence to bring the rain and the 
snow, and the sunshine and storm in their season, to give 
seed to the sower and bread to the eater ; that while man 
shall dwell on earth, seedtime and harvest and summer 



PERIODIC WINDS. 47 

and winter may not cease. So they wander, clothing the 
tropics with emerald cloaks of strangest beauty, and 
robing the poles with ermine and crystal : painting with 
rainbow-tints the autumn leaves, and touching with virgin 
blush the orchards in spring ; in all things obeying the 
decree of Him who hath set the seasons in order and 
made everything beautiful in its time. 



CHAPTER IV. 

TORNADOES AND CYCLONES. 

" O sad and mournful wind ! 
From what wild depths of human pain and sorrow 
Could'st thou those tones of restless anguish borrow 
As of a soul that dreams of no to-morrow, 
O sad and mournful wind ! 

O, thou art fierce and wild ! 
Thy mighty chariot through the black skies lashing, 
The cloud-shapes round the mountain-summits dashing, 
The waves of ocean round the wrecked bark crashing — 

O, thou art fierce and wild ! " 

MEN find no difficulty in recognizing law and system 
in the phenomena that are of constant or frequent 
recurrence. That which is most difficult to explain, may 
pass without a serious thought so long as it manifests no 
stupendous or sudden power. The water may wear away 
the stone for centuries and its progress be unheeded by 
those who daily visit the pool. 

So all observe and admire the beauty and order that 
prevails in the system of winds hitherto described. Their 
movements seem so simple and natural, that people take 
them as a matter of course. Rather, we should say, they 
may be depended upon with such certainty that the laws 
which they followed were unheeded for more than six 
thousand years. Relying on result, men gave themselves 
no concern about principle. 

But in the sudden storm, the cyclone or tempest that 
comes sweeping the land with hardly any warning, flood- 
ing and destroying, men find mystery. 

48 



TORNADOES AND CYCLONES. 4? 

And who is not justly awed thereby? What othei 
power so easily and frequently wrecks and ravages ? Whr 
may point out its course or stay its progress ? 

And indeed it would seem difficult at first to find any 
law or system that controls the motion of the storm. If a 
rain storm always came from the same direction ; if unus- 
ually high winds always blew from the same quarters, just 
as the moderate breezes of spring and summer can always? 
be expected from the same general direction, it would 
appear that there was much greater subordination to defi- 
nite law. But what can be more perplexing than to haw 
a storm blow violently from one quarter for a time, and 
after a brief calm to blow with equal violence the othe- 
way ? Can such phenomena be explained by any princi 
pies hitherto discovered? 

What is a storm ? Strictly speaking, it is any marked 
or unusual disturbance of the normal atmospheric condi- 
tions. There may be excessive wind : there may be ces- 
sation of the customary winds. Two great classes arf 
found : cyclonic, or low area storms, and anti-cyclonic, o* 
high area storms. The former may be accompanied b; 
heavy rainfall or snow ; the latter is usually noted foi 
absence of either. It is with the low area storm that w« 
must deal at present. 

This term is used to designate all storms which are 
marked by low barometer, and therefore it is clear that 
such are accompanied and partially occasioned by an 
unusual amount of moisture in the atmosphere. The 
resultant commotion is usually extensive, the storm centre 
traveling across the country ; but occasionally the effects 
are perceptible only for a short distance, the storm centre 
either breaking up or ascending to the upper atmosphere. 

By a cyclonic storm is signified a storm characterized 
by unusually low barometer, and a wind system blowing 

4 



50 GREAT DISASTERS. 

spirally inward, as in a genuine cyclone. They usually 
affect only the lower strata of the air. Quite frequently 
they are broken up by striking low mountain ranges, such as 
the Alleghany system : and often pass Mount Washington 
without making their presence felt at the signal station on 
its summit. To what extent they are influenced by or are 
due to the upper air currents is therefore unknown, though 
not a few of the attendant phenomena indicate that the 
latter are of no little importance. 

Any one who has observed the waters at the junction 
of two streams, is familiar with the appearance of numer- 
ous tiny eddies or whirlpools formed at the point of junc- 
tion. Such are perceptible also in every rapid stream, 
when the current, sheering sharply from a projecting 
point, is made in a measure to collide with itself. This is 
also the principle of the many tiny whirlwinds seen dur- 
ing the warm summer days : and such are also observable 
in winter, if there be snow enough to render their presence 
in the air clearly visible. Their results are most readily 
recognized in snow-drifts, where the wind meets some 
special obstruction. It does not often occur that a high 
fence is covered with a snow-drift : a great drift will be 
thrown up by it, but not against it : and the side next the 
fence will be curved inward, or concave. The wind strikes 
the fence and partially recoils, curving upward to pass 
over the fence. The drift is then built up between the 
wind and the current recoiling from the fence, and its 
inner curve shows the direction pursued by the rebound- 
ing current. 

Now, when opposing air-currents meet each other on a 
large scale, the immense whirlwind that is produced is 
called a cyclone or tornado. It follows then, that if we 
would find any regularity or law in these unusual disturb- 
ances, we must know if there exists any permanent con' 



TORNADOES AND CYCLONES. 51 

dition of atmospheric currents that is favorable to their 
generation. 

That such a state exists, we have already learned. The 
great belts of calms that we have found between the trade- 
winds and the return trades and polar currents, are more 
appropriately called the zones of equinoctial storms. We 
have in them districts of general calms, with winds in- 
fringing upon either side. It is evident then that, as in 
the case of the feuce, whose recoil-current curves the snow- 
drift, a whirling current of considerable magnitude may 
arise here at any time : hence, violent storms do arise in 
these regions more or less at all periods of the year. But 
we have seen that these zones of calms move slightly to 
the north or south with the course of the sun. It would 
then appear that at the equinoctial period, when they 
return from the mean position toward the extreme north- 
ern or southern limit, there would be opportunity for 
unusual disturbances, especially since the heavy rainfall 
of those periods would unusually affect the temperature 
of the atmosphere. 

That is precisely what occurs. The equinoxes are 
marked by storms of unusual severity, and the influence 
of the sudden falls of rain is so great that some eminent 
men believe them to be nearly the sole factor in the for- 
mation of these storms. In one case they doubtless are. If 
a very heavy rain be decidedly local, there is low barome- 
ter at that place. Now, if on either side there be areas of 
high barometer, the opposing currents flowing toward the 
center of low area are sufficient to meet all the conditions 
necessary for a cyclonic storm. As the zone of calms is 
comparatively narrow, it is apparent that the diameter of 
the area of any storm, owing to the pressure exerted by 
the incoming currents of wind, must be still less. Hence, 
the cyclone center, at its time of formation, seldom ex- 



52 GREAT DISASTERS. 

ceeds one hundred miles in diameter. As it travels away 
from the compressing currents that formed it, it is clear 
that its centrifugal force must increase ; hence, its area 
increases, and its violence correspondingly diminishes. 

These facts refer to the unusually violent cyclonic 
storms, properly known as cyclones. But all low area 
storms are characterized by the upward spiral motion, 
though not strong enough in the case of ordinary summer 
rains and thunderstorms to be especially noticed. We 
shall see, by and by, how this spiral motion may result 
without the intervention of any strong opposing currents. 

Why and how a cyclone travels, is a question that at 
once propounds itself. Its motion is in accordance with a 
fixed law, whose operation varies only as it may be affected 
by unusual peculiarities in the configuration of the surface 
over which it travels. The reason of the motion is not so 
easy to explain ; neither is it easy to explain why heat 
expands objects : but its operation is none the less certain. 
And so the route pursued by any storm can be readily 
indicated in advance. It is not a matter of mere con- 
jecture. 

The motion of a cyclone or tornado is in accordance 
with the same law that governs the motion of planets 
around the sun. It can be illustrated in a very simple 
manner by the spinning of a top. 

Spin a top on a perfectly smooth and level surface. It 
will be better if the peg of the top be blunt or round, so 
that there will be no tendency to settle steadily into some 
possible hole or depression. 

Now, the instant any degree of steadiness is attained, 
the top begins to move in small curves. If it be spun on 
a marble slab smoothly coated with fine flour or sand, it 
can be made to record its motions, which may then be 
carefully studied. It will be found that the form of the 



TORNADOES AND CYCLONES. 53 

curve is nearly the same with every start. It will describe 
a parabola, pause a moment, then describe a second, and 
so on. 

The chief peculiarity of this separate curvilinear motion 
is that its. direction is always in an opposite direction to 
that of the rotation of the top. If the top turn from left 
to right, it will move from right to left, and vice versa. 
The same tendency will manifest itself even if the peg of 
the top be placed in a slight depression or socket, so that 
the curve cannot be made. Then the upper portion of 
the top will incline to one side, and begin describing a 
curve : but, as before, in a direction contrary to the direc- 
tion of rotation. 

The common toy known as a gyroscope illustrates the 
last peculiarity also. It consists of a wheel within a metal 
frame, which has a peg like a top. If the wheel be made 
to revolve rapidly, the whole may be balanced on the peg : 
when the frame will begin to slowly revolve in the oppo- 
site direction : and if placed upon a smooth level surface, 
like the top it will tend to describe the same course. 

Still other illustrations of this principle are even more 
familiar than the spinning of a top. Any one who has 
seen the game of soldiers in a bowling alley knows that in 
order to make the ball turn to the left as it moves forward, 
it must spin the other way ; that is, with the hands of a 
watch. To travel or curve to the right, it must spin in 
the contrary direction. So in our " great national game," 
base-ball, the pitcher curves the ball any way he pleases 
merely by following this law. It is not necessary to take 
into account, as many do, the return trades, as occasioning 
the travel of a whirling storm ; and the fact is, that the 
cyclone frequently travels more rapidly than the ordinary 
wind moving in the same direction. 

Now, the motion of the planets is similar : rotating in 



54 



GREAT DISASTERS. 



one direction, they travel in the other. So we find the 
general law is, 

All revolving bodies, left free as to direction, travel in a 
curve in a direction opposite to that of their rotation. This 
curve is usually some form of conic section : an ellipse, 
parabola or hyperbola. The planets, and some comets, 
move in ellipses. Some comets travel parabolas or hyper- 
bolas. And the parabola is the customary path of the 
cyclonic storm. As the cyclone in the northern hemi- 
sphere rotates from right to left, and in the southern from 




left to right, their paths must necessarily be in opposite 
directions, as may be seen by the accompanying diagram. 
So in either case, the direction of the path is always away 
from the equator. 

As far as the United States are concerned, most non- 
cyclonic storms originate in the Saskatchewan country, or 
along the southeastern slope of the Rocky Mountains. 
By far the greater number pass over the St. Lawrence 
valley. A small number are developed in the Gulf, or in 
the Pacific: but these are much affected, often broken up, 



TORNADOES AND CYCLONES. 55 

in crossing the Rocky or Appalachian systems. The usual 
course is somewhat north of east; but there are a few 
notable exceptions. The immense amount of vapor wafted 
up the Mississippi valley induces some low area storms to 
move southward from Manitoba into the upper Mississippi 
valley. In like manner, the excessive moisture along our 
north Pacific coast causes occasional storms to move south- 
ward from Alaska to Oregon. 

But the course of a cyclonic storm, we have seen, must 
be different. 

The accompanying diagram illustrates the fact that the 
wind blows from all directions toward the center of the 
storm. As the storm revolves, the wind would come 
apparently from the south for any one on the eastern edge 
of the cyclone of the northern hemisphere, Hence, in 
the case of a storm of large diameter, people in Richmond 
or Washington may often be surprised by an apparent 
northeast gale, which reaches them before it strikes New 
York or Boston. At the center of the storm is absolute 
calm. So if a cyclone pass centrally over any point in 
the northern hemisphere, a person at that place will find 
the wind blowing violently from the southeast: then after 
an interval of calm, it will blow with equal violence from 
the northwest. This will be the case if the path of the 
storm has already turned to the northeast, so that its 
northeast quarter may be called its front. If on the 
northwest course, however, the apparently alternate winds 
would be from the northeast and southwest. So one in 
the path of a southern cyclone would find the winds pro- 
ceeding from the same quarters ; for though it revolves in 
the opposite direction, its front or path is also in the 
opposite direction ; so in either hemisphere, the southeast 
or the northeast wind will be the first felt by one directly 
in the track of the storm. 



66 



GREAT DISASTERS. 



Another result of the path of a cyclone is that the 
direction of its center from the stand -point of any observer 



NORTH HEMISPHERE. 

WECD 

£AS' 

A 




SOUTH HEMISPHERE. 
WIND 




ROTATION OF STOKMB. 



is readily known. A glance at the diagram shows at once 
that if any one within the storm area of a cyclone of the 



TORNADOES AND CYCLONES. 57 

northern hemisphere stands with his back to the wind, 
the storm center, where the barometer is lowest, is inva- 
riably on his left: but if he stand with his back to the 
wind of a southern cyclone, the storm center is always on 
his right. Hence, if a vessel be overtaken by a cyclone, 
the captain at once may know how to pass beyond its 
range, by shaping his course at right angles to that of tha 
wind. Thus, if in a northern cyclone, he must sail to the 
right, supposing his back is to the wind : in the southern 
hemisphere, he would sail to the left. 

As an example of the expansion of the storm area in its 
journey, may be mentioned the West India hurricane of 
1839, which had, in the Antilles, a diameter of three hun- 
dred miles, which increased to five hundred at the Ber- 
mudas, and eight hundred on the parallel of 50° north 
latitude. 

To draw again upon the illustration of the spinning 
top, it will be observed that the curvilinear motion is ex- 
tremely slow in comparison with that of rotation, but 
increases as the rotation decreases. The same law applies 
to the movement of cyclones. The slowest motion for- 
ward is usually near the apex of the curve : and the pro- 
gress on the ocean is much slower than on the land. 
Traveling over the latter, the irregularities of surface act 
in the case of the storm just as a rough surface does in the 
case of the top. The motion may be accelerated, but its 
regularity is lessened. So while at sea the parabolic path 
of the storm is almost absolutely perfect, but on reaching 
the land its motion is more rapid, and less regular, con- 
forming somewhat to the configuration of the surface. 

To illustrate, take the great cyclone of August 16th to 
22nd, 1888. This started off Point Jupiter, Florida, with 
a rainfall of 2.2 inches in twelve hours, while the rotary 
velocity of the wind was sixty miles per hour. Its path 



58 GREAT DISASTERS. 

across the Gulf of Mexico was a perfect semi-parabola, 
curving northward into western Louisiana ; but rapid as 
was the rotary velocity, three and a half days were required 
for the journey across the gulf. Meanwhile, it was rapidly 
widening : for within a few hours of its reaching land, its 
eastern edge was assailing Mobile, Alabama, with a south 
wind of fifty-five miles an hour. Almost at the same 
time the western half was flooding Memphis and Vicks- 
burg with an enormous rainfall — almost four inches in 
twelve hours, at Memphis. By the morning of August 
21st, thirty-six hours after reaching land, it was central 
over middle Tennessee and Kentucky; heavy rains fell 
over the entire region. But by this time its eastern edge 
was in collision with the Appalachian chain ; while a 
heavy local rain at the northern extremity of that chain 
created an additional diversion in a new area of low 
barometer. So it left the hitherto parabolic route, and 
shot away nearly at a tangent along the western Appala- 
chian slope, passing from Tennessee to Newfoundland in 
thirty-six hours, thus moving nearly three times as rapidly 
as in the Gulf: while its violence, or rotary speed, was 
vastly lessened. 

This storm was one of the most destructive of the recent 
cyclones that have swept our country, doing immense 
damage to crops, bridges, houses, herds — in short, every- 
thing that can be seriously damaged by wind or flood. 

The damage in Louisiana alone was estimated at 
$500,000. But it was by no means the most destructive 
of the West India storms. 

An examination of the areas of calms, which are the 
hot-beds of cyclones and hurricanes, shows that the re- 
gion which produces the great cyclones of the United 
States lies in the Antilles and Caribbean Sea. In the 
Pacific the portion of the calm belt of the Tropic of Cancer 



TORNADOES AND CYCLONES. 59 

causes the ravages of cyclones or hurricanes originating 
there to be felt chiefly in Japan and China. The storms 
of the Pacific arising in the equatorial calm belt, are most 
violent in the East Indies, and the southern peninsulas of 
Asia. As these regions are much warmer, and conse- 
quently the atmosphere may hold a much greater quantity 
of vapor, it follows that cyclones in that quarter much 
exceed in violence those of our own land. 

Such are the general laws of these terrible disturbances 
of nature, as ascertained by years of careful observation. In 
the United States, our Signal Service, with well-equipped 
observatories at important localities, is able to make these 
j)rinciples of practical use : to detect the incipient storm 
and mark out its path, ere it strikes its fiercest blow. 

It should be observed, ere leaving this topic, that a few 
would-be prophets have maintained that not only great 
storms, but also earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tidal 
waves, etc., are due to planetary influences. Observing 
that the most violent hurricanes occur near the equinoctial 
period, they argue that the equinoxes of the planets ought 
to also disturb the earth. They ignore the fact that as to 
our own equinoctial disturbances, the change in the rela- 
tive position of the earth and sun is sufficient to produce 
change in the location of heated air-currents and conse- 
quent storms. They seek to find in the Equinox Absolute, 
some strange mysterious magic, some inexplicable power 
or Deus ex machina, whose business it is to get up a dis- 
turbance here on earth at every possible opportunity, no 
matter in what planet he may be for the nonce located. 

But it is difficult to rid any man of his hobby. In the 
question of the equinoxes of other planets, their recurrence 
is of sufficient frequency to allow the weather-crank full 
play for his imagination. Two of the major planets lie 
within the earth's orbit, and their more rapid course about 



60 



GREAT DISASTERS. 




TORNADOES AND CYCLONES. 61 

the sun results in there being an equinox in one or the other 
of them about once in each month. So no matter in what 
month a great storm may occur, the enthusiast can point 
out that a neighboring planet is at or near an equinox 

A careful examination of the equinoxes of the inner 
planets for a period of fifteen years shows that the number 
occurring in the month of April was 22 per cent, above the 
average occurrence for any month : whence, it would appear 
that the disturbances at that period ought to be equally in 
excess. But as a matter of fact, storms on the earth are 
most numerous and violent at the time of the autumnal 
equinox — September and October — when no such departure 
from the average of equinoxes of the other planets appears. 

If planetary influence were the cause of our storms, i 
would be reasonable to suppose that disturbances would be 
greatest when the planets are nearest to the earth : but 
the advocates of the theory do not seem to consider this a 
factor at all. Nor could the planetary equinox theory 
account for the fact that storms of peculiar character 
always originate in the same regions. For instance, why 
do cyclones always originate near the tropics and move 
away from the equator ? If the planetary equinoxes pro- 
duce violent earthquakes, why are they so partial to North 
America as never in our whole history to have given us a 
very serious shaking up ? Why is it that of the hundreds 
of recorded tornadoes of the past century in the United 
States, only one has ever occurred west of Dodge City, 
Kansas? Clearly the adherents of the equinoctial theory 
will have to admit local terrestrial conditions that modify 
all their theories : and to make such an admission will be, 
in the end, to give up the fight. 

The writer knew of a boy who wasted a pound and a 
half of bird-shot in trying to kill a small owl. The game 
was finally secured, and the young Nimrod discovered a 



62 GREAT DISASTERS. 

hatful of feathers with the body of a robin — and of no 
earthly use. 

Attacking the planetary theory is of little more use. 
But the theory is the resort of. many would-be weather 
prophets, who needlessly alarm the ignorant with their 
gloomy forebodings. 

In a country as large as our own, any sort of weather is 
a very safe prediction to make for any day in the century, 
as minor rains and cloudy seasons and small storms are 
merely local. Any sort of prediction would be nearly sure 
to hit some portion of the country ; and one who is so dis- 
posed can easily win a cheap notoriety and gain scores of 
testimonials as to the correctness of his predictions. Every 
unusual catastrophe produces a brood of these gentry who 
are eager to make the trial. But those who endeavor to 
indicate the exact locality where any great disturbance 
is to take place, meet discomfiture with a uniformity 
that ought to be discouraging. The work of the Signal 
Service is as carefully done as may well be : yet its best 
men assert that an average of 90 per cent, of correctness 
in their prognostications is unusual, because of the ex- 
tremely small areas covered by local disturbances. Rainy 
weather announced for western Missouri may be correct 
every time for Kansas City, but be 10 per cent, in error 
for Nevada, Missouri. When those whose time is devoted 
to the weather can not always be correct, it is useless to 
listen to charlatans. 

A careful study of sun-spots with relation to storms has 
been made of late years. The fact is elicited that the 
spots seem to have a definite connection with electrical 
disturbances : but while there are numbers of coincidences 
between unusual sun-spots and great storms, the number of 
striking exceptions seems equally great. Hence, it can not 
be fairly inferred that there is any definite relation between 



TORNADOES AND CYCLONES. 63 

them. And so far as electrical phenomena on the earth 
are connected with storms, they always appear as depend- 
ent upon rather than productive of atmospheric currents. 
Indeed, the most remarkable electrical disturbances occur 
at times when no atmospheric current is prevalent. The 
most beautiful electrical display, the aurora, appears when 
the air is abnormally still and unusually dry. The neces- 
sity of the latter condition accounts for the fact that it is 
usually observable only in cold weather and occurs with 
great frequency and in remarkable brilliancy in the polar 
regions. It results from electric currents passing through 
extremely rarefied and dry air, and may be produced on a 
small scale artificially. 

Poe was right when he held that many things remain 
long secrets by reason of their very simplicity. Six thou- 
sand years steam hissed and fumed in men's faces, and 
tilted the kettle lid, before they learned its expansive 
power. Six thousand years the lightning flamed and 
roared before man realized it could be made one of his 
most obedient servants. Six thousand years he cudgeled 
his wits to discover the secret of the wind : yet when he 
made a fire within his house, he closed the door to prevent 
unpleasant draughts of air. And so he continues, con- 
stantly endeavoring to find some strange mystery in the 
things that are dependent on simplest laws. 

There was a time when men stood aghast at small-pox, 
cholera, yellow fever, and many similar calamities, and 
spoke with bated breath of the "mysterious visitations of 
providence," the " scourge of God," and so on. When 
the Turks once besieged a plague-stricken city, a comet 
appeared in the sky. The pious inhabitants prayed "O 
Lord, deliver us from the devil, the Turk and the comet," 
and usually such people believed such plagues were the 
judgment of God on them for their sins. Modern science 



64 GREAT DISASTERS. 

holds that about the only sin the Lord punishes in that 
way is the sin of filthy streets, or back-door cess-pools. 
When man has once learned the means of control and 
prevention, evils lose their mysterious witchery. 

On the other hand, let the laws of any force in nature 
be every so well understood : yet, so long as they are 
beyond the control of man, they will retain for him an 
eerie uncanny fascination. The pigmy has harnessed 
the steam and chained the lightning : but when the storm 
clouds lower and the forests moan, the sea roars and the 
lightning glows, he stands in fear and awe before a power 
whose might he but vaguely comprehends. He may 
know of the winds, whence and whither bound ; but when 
the Stygian darkness has passed on, leaving wreck and 
ruin, want and woe, desolation and despair, shattered 
homes and hopes, and bleeding hearts, this knowledge of 
law is, for the nonce, forgotten, and the hurricane is trans- 
formed, in his disordered vision, into a demon of wrath, 
or caprice ; or he speaks, hesitatingly it may be, of the 
mysterious dispensation of an inscrutable providence. 
But in the mighty wind, as in the soughing breeze, there 
is only obedience to universal law. But when the Author 
of law displays his power, man's instinct, however unwill- 
ing his reason, acknowledges a God. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE LOUISVILLE TORNADO, 

" At eve along the calm resplendent west 
I marked a cloud alive with fairy light, 
So warmly pure, so sweetly, richly bright, 
It seemed a spirit of ether, floating blest, 
In its own happy empire ! While possest 
With admiration of the marvelous light, 
Slowly its hues, opal and chrysolite, 
Waned on the shadowy gloaming's phantom breast. 
The cloud became a terror, whose dark womb, 
Throbbed with keen lightnings, by destruction hurled, 
Red bolt on bolt, while a drear ominous gloom 
Enveloped Nature : o'er the startled world — 
A deep alarum — burst the thunder boom 
And the swift Storm his coal-black wings unfurled ! " 

JpHERE is a perspective of news as well as of art, 
J- which requires that such features in a view as are 
supposed to be nearest to the observer must be given larger 
detail. It is a natural consequence of the fact that a 
small object near by may conceal from view a mountain 
in the distance. 

So in the news world a dog run over on Washington 
avenue takes rank with a wreck in the Indian Ocean. A 
fight in a neighboring saloon gets ten inches: a strike in 
Germany ten lines. Your neighbor's new barn is a good 
item for the county paper whose editor cares nothing for 
the new bank in Boston. The Widow Jones gets a puff 
for whitewashing her fence; the refitting of the White 
House gets a line. A million of people who have heard 
of George Washington, never heard of Alfred the Great. 

Now, not a few will think that there is injustice in this. 

5 65 



66 GREAT DISASTERS. 

Doubtless the tendency of the time is to exaggerate per- 
spective to obtain startling effects. Caricature is charac- 
teristic of the age. And yet, there was never before a 
time when so many people took interest in things that lay 
beyond their own narrow circle ; even if that interest be 
from mere curiosity. 

Sometimes this self-centered condition of humanity has 
an amusing aspect : as if one should imagine the earth 
terminated with his own apparent horizon. Some 
South Sea Islanders called the first white men who 
visited them, " sky-breakers." The reason is simple. 
Dwelling on their little islets, mere specks in the deep, 
and in all their myths and legends having no account of 
any other race, they supposed themselves to be the only 
people in the world. Their sky was a vast wall of 
blue stones raised by one of their mythical heroes. It 
shut in the world and could not be far away, though none 
of them had endeavored to reach it. So these strange 
white creatures were not of this world ; neither were they 
of the race of the gods ; they came from no one knew 
where, and had somehow broken through the blue wall 
that bounded the world. And white men are in some 
islands called " sky-breakers " to this day. 

Something of the same spirit is manifested by the 
Chinese. The devil of their mythology is white. So our 
occidental sensibilities received quite a shock when we 
learned that we were "foreign devils." The Japanese 
more considerately called us " foreign beasts," as though 
uncertain of our status in the animal kingdom. And 
to this day our magnificent vessels are gravely styled 
"devil ships" by the Chinese. 

Such are what might be appropriately styled ludicrous 
exaggerations of perspective. And we of the west are simi- 
larly so wrapped up in our self-sufficiency that it hardly 



THE LOUISVILLE TORNADO. 67 

occurs to us that we may appear as amusing to foreigners 
as they to us. In this respect our charity begins at home. 
It is the way of the world. 

But there are a thousand occurrences that make us feel 
that the principle is just, no matter to what extremes we 
may foolishly carry it. It comes home to each with pecu- 
liar emphasis in the hour of distress. The famine in Asia 
does not weigh upon jou. so heavily as the death of the 
woman who starved in the garret across the street. A fire 
that burns Chicago is easier forgotten that the one which 
destroys the little home that represents the savings of 
years of your life. The cholera in India has no such 
terrors for you as the diphtheria or scarlet fever in your 
own village. The Czar of Russia is blown to pieces in his 
carriage ; but he has no remembrance at the bedside of 
your sick friend. Ten thousand dead victims of a distant 
earthquake are hidden by the coffin in your own home. 

Since the same law applies to the interests of nations, it 
is not necessary, in reviewing the work of destructive tem- 
pests, to apologize for giving chief place to the recent 
Louisville tornado, however insignificant it may appear in 
comparison with scores of others that have desolated the 
earth in days gone by. The latter shall be noticed in due 
time. 

In the foregoing chapter we have seen that the great 
cyclones that occasionally visit us originate in the neighbor- 
hood of the Antilles. Of course, similar conditions may 
produce smaller storms of the same class in numerous local- 
ities. These small storms whose paths are but a few yards, 
or sometimes as much as a mile in diameter, are called, 
to distinguish them from the great cyclone of twenty to 
two hundred miles in diameter, by the Portuguese title of 
tornados, or "turning-storms." Often the broken character 
of the country will cause a large gathering storm to break 



68 



GREAT DISASTERS. 




w 



THE LOUISVILLE TORNADO. 69 

up into half a dozen or more of the smaller ones, which, 
in their narrow paths are as destructive as the cyclone. 

It is the unexpected that happens. No one experiences 
so many surprises, or has more pet beliefs upset than that 
oracle of the chimney-corner, the oldest inhabitant. It 
was long believed that tornadoes never passed over an old 
Indian camp ground. Whatever the popular opinion of 
savage intellect, there is marvelous confidence in his 
instinct. Again, it was thought a tornado never would 
pass over a large city. The storm in question demolished 
both these "oldewyves' tales." 

During March 27th, 1890, the Signal Service Depart- 
ment observed a threatening storm center gather in the 
southwestern portion of Wyoming, and start eastward with 
great rapidity. Notice was promptly given. Railway, 
telegraph and electric light officials were warned that on 
Thursday night a hurricane would blow with a speed of 
at least fifty miles an hour. Signal Service predictions 
had sometimes failed, and this last one excited no particu- 
lar concern. The destroyer came and was gone in two 
minutes; and blocks on blocks of Louisville were a ghastly 
ruin. 

The tornado was accompanied by a cloud and tremend- 
ous rain To an observer at the Falls, the cloud was seen 
to come up the gap between the hills which guard the 
banks of the beautiful Ohio. He described it as " balloon- 
shaped, twisting an attenuated tail to the earth. It emitted 
a constant fusillade of lightning, and seemed to be com- 
posed of a lurid, snake-like mass of electric currents, 
whose light would sometimes be extinguished for a few 
moments, making an almost intolerable darkness. It was 
accompanied by a fearful roar, like that of a thousand 
trains crossing the big bridge at once. It could be seen 
to strike Louisville, and then with incredible rapidity it 



70 GREAT IMS ASTERS. 

leaped the river, churning it into white foam as it went 
toward the Indiana shore." 

The streets of Louisville parallel to the river are named ; 
those at right angles are numbered from east to west. The 
section visited may be described as a rectangle a mile 
square, bounded on the west by Eighteenth street, on the 
east by Seventh, on the south by Broadway, and on the 
north by the Ohio river. It comprehends the business 
portion of the city. Through this district the cyclone 
swept diagonally from southwest to northeast, crossing the 
river and leaving the city at the foot of Seventh street. 
The business houses or residences of perhaps 10,000 people 
lay in its path. 

Two days after the storm, when there had been time for 
a calm survey, its track is thus described by a correspond- 
ent of the Associated Press : 

" It first descended upon the beautiful little suburb of 
Parkland, southwest of the city, destroying many private 
residences. The loss of life was inconsiderable at this 
initial point, however. Rushing onward toward the north- 
west it lifted for a moment above the trees and housetops, 
and descended again a mile further on at Maple and 
Eighteenth streets. From this on its pathway is clearly 
marked. At no time did the base of the funnel touch the 
ground, and one hundred feet higher in the air, it would 
have passed by without doing comparatively much damage. 

" The ruins as they now are often show the first, and even 
the second and third stories of buildings still intact, with 
the roofs and higher stories swept away except in places 
where the debris from the upper floors crushed in the 
lower, and brought the walls down to the ground in total 
collapse. From Maple and Eighteenth streets it went 
northward one block, then west at an angle another block ; 
and then curving to the northeast as far as Magazine and 



THE r.OJISYJLLK TOIJNAD< 




72 GREAT DISASTERS. 

Thirteenth streets. A quick change to the north is per- 
ceptible here, and after traveling in that direction two 
blocks, another turn to the west. An acute angle was 
then made, the line turning from Fifteenth street north- 
east to Thirteenth street again; thence, due east to Tenth 
street, and north a block to Market street. At Thirteenth 
and Jefferson streets it swept through Baxter Park, doing 
great damage, and a block eastward destroyed St. John's 
Episcopal Church, in the rectory of which the Rev. S. E. 
Barnwell and his little son were crushed and burned to 
death, the rest of the family escaping. 

" St. John's Church is in the stree*t immediately in the 
rear of the ill-fated Falls City Hall. The eccentric mon- 
ster went on eastward past the Falls City Hall without 
touching it, and then, as if suddenly recollecting, it swept 
around the block and started westward on the south side 
of Market street. Had the change of direction been made 
a trifle sooner or later Falls City Hall would have escaped, 
and the dead been numbered within thirty or forty at the 
most. 

"As if satisfied with the work accomplished, it turned 
north again and struck Main street. This thoroughfare is 
the principal business street in the city. * It runs parallel 
with the river from east to west, and but a block south of 
it. It is lined with wholesale houses, and was the solidest 
part of the city in point of architecture. 

"The tornado reached Main street at Twelfth, and then 
shaped its course directly east down the middle of the 
broad street, sweeping away the solid stores and warehouses 
on both sides. From Twelfth to Seventh streets on Main 
it is a wholesaling district, and it was practically unten- 
anted at that hour. Had the storm come in the daytime 
and taken the same direction, hundreds who were at their 
houses and escaped unhurt would have been killed. 



THE LOUISVILLE TORNADO. 7S 

" At Seventh street and Main the buildings change in 
their character. The big Louisville Hotel is on Main 
between Sixth and Seventh, and east of the hotel are res- 
taurants, saloons and other hotels which contained thou- 
sands of people at that hour. The tornado chased down 
Main street, carrying everything before it, passing 
Eleventh street, Tenth, Ninth, Eighth, and Seventh. A 
block further and the Louisville Hotel, with its hundreds 
of tenants, would have been reached. The escape of the 
hotel is the strangest incident of all. Adjoining it on 
the west, from whence the storm came, was a three-story 
building used as a saloon on the first floor, and occupied 
in the upper stories as sleeping apartments for the hotel 
servants. This three-story building, right under the east 
wall of the hotel, was totally demolished and not a tim- 
ber left a dozen feet higher than the ground. Its in- 
mates were killed. The great hotel shook from roof to 
cellar with the force of the shock, but it was spared. 

" The storm veered at the sharpest kind of an angle to 
the north again, crossed Main street, and struck for the 
river, taking in the Union Depot on the way. Strange to 
say, although the depot was totally demolished, only one 
person was killed there. At the point where the tornado 
crossed the river, between New Albany and Jeffersonville, 
it is supposed several small crafts were sunk. 

" Reaching the opposite bank of the river, the storm 
turned to the east again and took off a bite from Jefferson- 
ville. It went along Front street for a few blocks, dam- 
aging buildings, but causing no loss of life. Then it took 
to the river and struck the Kentucky shore about four 
miles east of where it left it, and outside of the city of 
Louisville. At this exact spot is located the Louisville 
pumping works, which supplies the whole city with water. 

" The pumping works were destroyed, and the city is now 



74 GREAT DISASTERS. 

threatened with a water famine in consequence. The next 
heard of the peculiar course taken by the tornado is from 
Eminence, Ky., about forty miles east of Louisville, which 
was badly damaged by the storm. The intervening 
country may have suffered somewhat, but no other towns 
were visited, and from Eminence the destroyer probably 
took a final leave of the earth's surface and passed on to 
the Atlantic Coast at a higher and less dangerous alti- 
tude." 

This outline seems to show how easily the course of a 
storm is modified by the irregularities of surface, even 
when the obstacles are such as it can overcome. It is seen 
that the course of a small storm over broken country, little 
resembles the steady curve of the storm in the open sea. 
Ever and anon, the obstacles below momentarily break the 
regular current, which is as often renewed in a moment 
by the powerful upward suction in the upper air. This is 
the phenomenon known as "jumping," which may be 
repeated till the widening of the center leaves the storm 
too weak to promptly restore the current at the ground, 
and the danger from the tornado is over. Some of the 
apparent eccentricities in the city, are doubtless due to the 
fact that occasional buildings were strong enough to resist ; 
and leaving such at slight variations in its course, made it 
present the appearance of doubling on its track. 

So many blocks of buildings, great and small, in an 
instant violently hurled to pieces, would seem to infer with 
certainty the death of nearly all the occupants. That only 
about a hundred should have been killed outright, was there- 
fore a matter of astonishment no less than of gratitude. 
The terror and anguish of the first moments or hours could 
not, however, be measured by the actual calamity to human 
life. Members of households suddenly separated from 
each other in the darkness, could only fear the worst. 



THE LOUISVILLE TORNADO. 



75 




76 GREAT DISASTERS. 



Their startled imagination saw the missing one dead or 
dying under the huge piles of fallen buildings. There 
were excited cries and calls and wailing of the living; a mad 
rush and frantic tugging at the ruins, from beneath which 
were sometimes heard shrieks for help or groans of the 
dying. To add to the universal terror, fires broke out in 
many places, threatening imprisoned wretches with a fate 
more horrible than the crush of falling walls, or timbers, 
bricks or iron, hurtling through the air. Before help could 
reach them the flames took hold on some and hushed their 
cries forever. Fortunately, the fire-alarm connections 
were left intact, and as alarm after alarm was sent, there 
was a dashing of the engines to the rescue, and the whole 
fire-department was presently engaged in extinguishing 
the flames, or recovering the living and the dead. Hospitals 
and morgues were suddenly improvised in sheds or shops, 
where the wounded were cared for, or the dead were de- 
posited to await the recognition or claim of the living. 

Falls City Hall was the theatre of the principal loss of 
life. It was a brick building fronting on Market between 
Eleventh and Twelfth. The ground-floor had long been 
used as a market, and contained forty or fifty stalls of 
gardeners and butchers. These stalls were closed and the 
keepers were absent at the hour of the disaster. In front 
on the second floor were three small rooms, one of them 
utilized as an office, the other two as toilet rooms. Behind 
these was a large hall, and in the rear of this still another 
hall, in which a young lady, her father, brother and sister 
being present, was teaching a dancing school. There 
might have been sixty-five persons in this room, though 
one witness says twenty-eight. In one of the small rooms 
seven men, constituting the Executive Committee of the 
Roman Knights, was holding a business meeting. In 
another room a band of musicians, fifteen in number, were 



THE LOUISVILLE TORNADO 77 

going through a rehearsal. Some decorators were at 
work in the large hall, preparing it for some coming 
occasion. On the third floor were assembled the Jewel 
Lodge No. 2 of the Knights and Ladies of Honor, with 
an attendance of a hundred or more. In an adjoining 
hall the Humboldt Lodge No. 146 of I. O. O. F. with 
seventeen members was in session. The whole number of 
people in the building must have been nearly or quite two 
hundred. In an instant the fearful wrench of the 
cyclone had twisted the building into fragments, and tum- 
bled it in shapeless ruin upon the inmates. 

Ten minutes after the collapse might have been seen a 
frantic multitude hastily gathering from all quarters, 
among them many women clutching vainly with their 
fingers at the slate roof, and madly tearing at the wreck 
beneath which the imprisoned and wounded were crying 
for help. Presently, fire broke out, but it was happily 
extinguished. The work of rescue was now organized 
and speedily set in motion, but an hour elapsed before 
the first victim was extricated. This was a lady, 
found sitting upright with bruised head and broken 
arm. She told of her vain effort to escape, and of the 
position in which she had last seen her companions. 
Meanwhile, some were digging in the center of the debris 
in answer to a voice which grew fainter and fainter until 
it was hushed forever. The work of rescue was now 
shifted to the other end of the pile. 

James Hassen was foremost among the workers, and on 
reaching the hall room of the Knights and Ladies, he took 
from the ruins the first body, which proved to be that of his 
wife, and who expired in his arms. He gently laid his 
dead wife aside, and hurried again to aid in recovering the 
rest. Presently, ten women were reached, clasped in each 
others arms — all dead but one. The dancing room was 



78 



GREAT DISASTERS. 




THE LOUISVILLE TORNADO. 79 

reached. One lady was taken out fatally hurt, a^d one 
after another her three children, unconscious, but destined 
to recover. While her husband was urging the rescue of 
his fourth child, still somewhere beneath the ruins, an 
under-current of air having been admitted, the fire again 
broke out with startling fierceness, and the furious heat 
compelled a suspension of the work. The groans of the 
imprisoned were now changed to fearful shrieks, while the 
watchers, helpless to render aid, screamed and ran wildly 
about with anxiety and horror. Three or four lines of 
hose were turned upon the flames, and they were subdued ; 
but an hour, in which probably many a life went out, had 
been lost from the work. By twelve o'clock many dead 
and wounded had been removed from the ruins. The 
dead were largely in the majority. Many of these exhib- 
ited no outward wounds, and had been apparently suffo- 
cated by gas escaping from broken pipes. 

But the reader may be spared further details of the 
recovery at Falls City Hall. Suffice it to say, that two 
days were required to remove the wreck and demonstrate 
the precise extent of the calamity. On this spot, about 
eighty persons had lost their lives. 

The narratives of some of the survivors will serve to 
show that while the tornado comes without warning, the 
heaviest wind is not just at first : and a cool head may 
sometimes profit by the interval to escape. Sailors have a 
saying that the " tail " of a gale is strongest. A young 
man who was taken from the wreck of the hall says : 

"I was dancing, when a flash of lightning, followed by 
a crash, made me think that the lightning had struck some 
part of the rear of the building. The next moment, the 
big doors that enter into the big hall in front flew open. 
I continued dancing, and cried to some of the boys to 
close the doors. They did so, and were bolting them, when 



80 GREAT DISASTERS. 

they were again forced open with such force as to knock 
down everybody around them. Then the window sashes 
were blown in, and the building commenced rocking. I 
saw that the house was about to fall, and I hallooed : 'The 
walls will go next/ I ran to the dressing-room, and I 
think most of the girls followed me. I got under a table 
and held fast to the legs, thinking that I might be saved 
in that way. Then the walls began crumbling, and the 
lights went out, and the floor descended like an eleva- 
tor. The crash stunned me for a moment, but finally a 
flash of lightning showed me a hole in the debris, through 
which I might have crawled had not my leg been pinioned 
between some timbers. There were people all around me, 
and they were crying for help ; but there was no one to 
aid us. I tugged and strained, but I could not get loose. 
Finally, I heard my father's voice, and answered him; 
and directly he crawled down the hole. It took him three- 
quarters of an hour to extricate me, and then we both 
crawled out. If there had been help at once, we might 
have saved others, as I knew about where they all were, 
but they were more or less hurt. " 

That less than half of those in the building should have 
been killed is a matter of wonder. The manner of indi- 
vidual escapes can only be inferred from one or two more 
which we subjoin. 

One of the lady members of the lodge of the Knights 
and Ladies of Honor relates : 

" I went to attend the lodge meeting, and when all were 
present the calamity came. There must have been about 
seventy-five people in the room at the time of the tornado. 
None of them were able to get out before the building fell 
in. The first intimation we had of what was coming was 
the flash of lightning and the beating of hail against the 
windows. The wind howled, and I heard a fearful roar- 



THE LOUISVILLE TORNADO. 81 

ing noise. The people became frightened, and hurriedly 
gathered their wraps together. All were fearful of 
impending danger. 

"Just at this moment I saw a round hole blown 
through the wall, immediately above one of the windows. 
The gas went out and then I saw another large round hole 
appear in the roof. Through this I saw the lightning 
play with awful grandeur. This natural light was all 
that relieved the gloom and darkness. I heard one of the 
trustees of the lodge call out to all the people to go out 
quickly and in a body. He cried out not to rush, as some 
one would be killed if they did. Then I knew no more 
until I became conscious, and found that I was partially 
imbedded in bricks and timbers. I felt blood running 
down my neck and became aware that I had been struck 
on the head by a brick or timber. I extricated myself, 
and by the flashes of lightning made my way over the 
terrible mass of debris and dead bodies toward the front. 
I saw a man making his way down the pile of bricks to 
to the street, and I followed. When I reached the side- 
walk I was aided to a neighboring store by a lodge trus- 
tee. I don't know how he made his way out. I heard 
cries for help as I came out, but I had barely strength to 
move, and could not help the others. " 

A thrilling experience was that of another member of 
the same lodge. His estimate of the attendance, larger 
than the foregoing, is yet materially exceeded by others. 
He says : 

" The first intimations of danger we had were two dis- 
tinct rockings of the building, about which time a dormer 
window in the lodge room was blown from its casings, and 
immediately after the plastering began to drop from the 
ceiling. A wild rush was made for the ante-room, which 
carried me with it, and I had just reached the door when 

6 



82 



GREAT DISASTERS. 




THE LOUISVILLE TORNADO. 83 

the entire floor gave way, and we were precipitated to the 
basement, blinded and almost suffocated by a cloud of 
dust, and crushed and jammed by falling timbers. In 
some way the doorframe fell with me and maintained an 
upright position when it stopped, and I was enabled to 
extricate myself from the debris and make an exit to the 
street through an adjoining house, whose doors I kicked 
in. Meanwhile, the shrieks and groans of those still im- 
prisoned by the wreck formed a chorus that, in connection 
with the howling of the storm, made my very heart sick. 
I was, so far as hasty examination went, comparatively 
uninjured, and at once returned over the ruins with several 
men to the rear of the place and extinguished a fire that 
had begun to blaze fiercely. By this time the rain was 
falling in torrents, and it was difficult for those who had 
gathered from the neighborhood, or who had been as lucky 
as I was to escape with life, to tell where to begin the work 
of rescue. 

"The vivid lightning flashes only gave momentary 
views of the position of the ruins, and blinded everybody. 
Among those whom I saw and recognized as having 
escaped from Jewel lodge I can name only the treasurer, 
who was covered with dust, drenched with rain and well- 
nigh distracted by the probable fate of her aged father, 
who had attended the lodge meeting with her and who 
was still in the ruins. The entire building collapsed in 
front and rear, and of the east and west side walls nothing 
was standing above the second story. 

"So far as I could judge when I had succeeded in 
escaping, there were less than a dozen, all told, who got 
out unhurt; and the cries for help and groans that issued 
from the broken and twisted heap was proof that scores 
were still there, unable to escape." 

The Union Depot was utterly demolished. An officer 
of the Louisville Southern Road relates the story : 



84 GREAT DISASTERS. 

" Quite a crowd of people were present waiting for 
trains. Mr. Woodard, of the Monon Railroad, was near 
me, and I had been talking to him. The wind was blow- 
ing strong, and seemed to increase in power. We heard 
a dull moaning in the distance, and the glass in the win- 
dows of the depot was shattered, although the first puff 
was merely the advance guard of the tornado. The people 
became alarmed. One man started to rush into the ticket 
office, but the ticket-seller pushed him back. Mr. Wood- 
ard and I also started for the ticket office. Just at this 
moment the tornado, like a clap of thunder, struck the 
depot. 

" The building gave way and tumbled in upon us. I 
was just at the door of the ticket office when it went down. 
I fell, and a man standing near me fell across me. A 
heavy girder fell on top of him. Mr. Woodard was only 
a few feet away. I never lost consciousness. I spoke to 
Mr. Woodard and he replied. We both thought we could 
get out alive if the depot did not catch fire. I knew that 
there had been stoves with fire burning in them in the 
depot before the tornado struck it, and I expected the 
flames to break out at every moment. 

" I spoke to the man who was lying across me and told 
him that he must manage to squeeze from under the 
girder. I thought that if he was off me I could manage 
to get out. After many desperate efforts he managed to get 
from under the girder, but in doing so his bowels were torn 
so terribly that the doctors do not think he can recover. 
He was a brakeman, who had come here to be a witness 
in some case. I do not remember his name. 

"After the brakeman got off me, I was able to use my 
strength. Then I got out, and so did Mr. Woodard. I 
was under the wreck just thirty-five minutes. I was 
slightly bruised in the arm and leg, but that amounts to 
nothing." 



THE LOUISVILLE IORNA 



DO 



8"i 




86 GREAT DISASTERS. 

Though forty or fifty persons were in the depot at the 
time, only one, a restaurant boy, was killed. Twenty-one 
passenger coaches were more or less wrecked. On follow- 
ing days the impression of the ruins upon the beholder was 
peculiarly gloomy. Instead of the stir of life, the bril- 
liancy of electric lights, the scream of whistles and the 
rumbling of trains, there was a scattered wreck, and com- 
parative silence. A few chickens, liberated from their 
coop, crept at dusk to roost on a timber, and in subdued 
tones seemed to be discussing with each other the mournful 
situation. 



CHAPTER VI. 

INCIDENTS OF THE TORNADO. 

" cold and savage wind ! 
It racks my soul to hear the wild lamenting 
Of wounded hearts whose grief knows no relenting, 
Can not their woe e'er sway thee to repenting? 
O cold and savage wind ! 

melancholy wind! 
Hast thou no requiem for the dead and dying? 
Art thou some tierce despairing spirit sighing 
O'er a lost Paradise behind thee lying? 

O melancholy wind ! " 

JT\00 frequently in the confusion of great disasters the 
-L woes of the poorer classes are forgotten in the atten- 
tion given to their more oppulent neighbors. There is only 
too often good cause given for a slight modification of 
Shy lock's speech, " Hath not a Jew eyes ? " etc. There is 
no sadder record than that so frequently given in a single 
line: "Dead — a woman, name unknown." What fearful 
heart-aches often end in the Potter's field ! 

Adjoining the Louisville Hotel was a saloon and cigar 
store, the rooms over which were occupied by the hotel 
laundry girls. These were hurled into the cellar, and so 
tightly wedged that death could not have been long de- 
layed. One was found sitting upright, the pallor of death 
on her face, and agony in every feature. Another lay 
upon her back, with hands outstretched above her head, as 
though she tried to thrust destruction back. A third was 
sitting, dead ; while near by another lay upon her face, as 
though refusing to behold that which she could not shun. 

87 



88 GREAT DISASTERS. 

"Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, 
If memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise, 
Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault 
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise." 

Poor laundry girls ! Let their dead dust be mentioned 
with reverence. Had they been spoiled daughters of wealth 
and fashion, press reporters would have waxed eloquent of 
their birth, their history, their beauty, their accomplish- 
ments, their heritage. We should have heard in detail 
the names of their wealthy and mourning friends, and of 
their impressive obsequies. Magnificent monuments would 
have risen to mark their sleeping dust. These five laundry 
girls were taken up tenderly, and two or three days later, 
together borne without pomp to humble graves. But is 
not honest industry in useful avocation toiling for bread a 
more royal thing than silks and diamonds, bedizzening 
frivolty and idleness ? Is there not in America many a 
haughty heiress, less worthy of our tears, than these ? 

"Let not ambition mock their useful toil, 
Their homely joys and destiny obscure ; " 

and when we say, Peace to their ashes! will not the reader 
add a fervent Amen ! 

On Seventeenth street was a pathetic sight. One black- 
ened and charred wall stood swaying in the wind. Just 
over the door was a sign — " Plain Sewing." An old woman 
had been the sole tenant. Here, any day for years past, 
it may be, 

" With fingers weary and worn, 

With eyelids heavy and red, 
A woman sat in unwomanly rags, 

Plying her needle and thread : — 
Stitch— Stitch— Stitch, 

In poverty, hunger and dirt, 
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch, 

She sang the song of the shirt." 

Her charred body was dug from beneath the ruins. 
Tragic end of a life of poverty and toil ! But when we 



INCIDENTS OF THE TORNADO. 89 

reflect on the lot of many another sewing woman, who 
still survives, we may, with Solomon, feel inclined to 
"praise the dead who are already dead, more than the 
living who are yet alive." 

About Thirteenth and Walnut dwelt a peddler with 
wife and child. He knocked a hole in the side wall of 
his wrecked home, and dragged out his little family over 
a seemingly impassable pile of debris. Then he thought 
of another woman and two helpless children imprisoned 
up stairs. He rushed to their rescue, and dragged them 
out just in time to save them from the flames, which two 
minutes later were licking up all that would burn. 

Society must think more of its lonely toilers ; even of 
its peddlers and publicans and sinners. It was the keeper 
of a brothel in Memphis, who, during the awful yellow- 
fever visitation, turned her house into a hospital, and 
ministered to the suffering till she fell a victim herself. 
Jesus was looking at some very nice people when he said, 
" The publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of 
God before you." To those good people, such a thing 
would be one of the " mysteries of Providence." 

" Mysteries of Providence " are continually ferreted out 
on such occasions. Reporters, to whom everything that 
can be written is news, gather up a hundred items and 
give them to the public ; often grouping items in a man- 
ner that is strikingly grotesque. There is no grimmer 
humor than the apparently matter-of-fact statement that 
during a great Italian earthquake, wherein lofty cathedrals 
were shaken to pieces and hundreds of people killed, stat- 
ues of the Virgin escaped uninjured. Sober-minded peo- 
ple are prone to wonder what is the relative value of a 
human life and a graven image. One might, if such things 
were of constant occurrence, consider them as meant by 
Providence as a very sarcastic punishment for the viola- 
tion of the second commandment. 



90 



GREAT DISASTERS. 




■ •^.■■•■'.V\ ^ V 1 



J 



INCIDENTS OF THE TORNADO. 91 

It is related that at the time of the massacre of St. 
Bartholomew, a Romish captain secured a number of 
fugitives, among whom he felt satisfied there were some 
good Catholics. Not being able to distinguish them 
readily, he referred the perplexing case to a fanatical 
priest. The response came promptly : " Kill all ; the 
Lord will know his own!" 

Interpreters of the inscrutable ways of Providence 
might find such the only solution for many particulars of 
the storm. The pious but superstitious folk who believe 
that all such visitations are for the sins of a people, instead 
of the result of laws that send the rain alike upon the just 
and the unjust, might find some perplexity in conning the 
following cases. 

On the next street back of Falls City Hall stood the St. 
John's Episcopal Church. The rector, with his little 
four-year-old boy, was in the study. The rectory and the 
church were completely destroyed, and the rector and his 
child were killed. In an adjoining building, ten or eleven 
men were playing cards. The house was demolished, but 
not one of the players was seriously hurt. The preacher 
perished ; the idlers were saved — herein is food for reflec- 
tion. 

Tierney's saloon was on Eleventh, between Main and 
Market. The ice-box saved him and four other men from 
being crushed. They crowded beside it, and crawled out 
uninjured. The pastor and the useful laundry girls per- 
ished; the saloon-keeper and his patrons survived. 

The Catholic buildings at Seventeenth and Broadway 
were Father Desney's residence, the Sisters' Home, the 
Church of the Saered Heart, and the parochial school. 
All these were wrecked by the wind, and Sister Pius 
was killed. There is a story that, amid utter ruin, the 
image of the Virgin was left standing, untouched by harm. 



92 GREAT DISASTERS. 

Let the devout remember that a saloon-keeper obtained 
an equal deliverance. 

Elmer Barnes and several others ran into Eckerle's 
saloon, 1001 West Market, and securely closed the door. 
The building fell with a crash, and the men were buried 
in the ruins. Barnes and Eckerle were overwhelmed by 
the falling bricks and timber. Eckerle was fearfully in- 
jured ; Barnes was drawn from the ruins, and died a few 
hours afterward. The other men were only slightly hurt. 
If we have had occasion to mention the destruction of one 
church and of several saloons, it is probably ouly because 
saloons are more numerous than churches. 

At a grocery store at the corner of Sixteenth and Mag- 
azine streets the owner and five others were standing at 
the bar in the back part of the store. A dreadful roaring 
sound was heard, and the house rocked back and forth. 
The owner's wife and children screamed and ran out the 
back way. Almost instantly the rear wall of the building 
fell. The six men rushed to escape by the front door, 
but the wind closed it with such force that it could not be 
opened. The floor beneath gave way, and three men 
were dropped into the cellar and pinned among the ruins. 
The other three escaped through a side window. Instantly 
a fire kindled and took hold on the imprisoned men. 
Their cries were awful, while their escaped companions 
witnesssd the horrible cremation and were powerless to 
render aid. 

We record but a few of the multitude of deaths, expe- 
riences, incidents and escapes. Doubtless, there is many 
an untold tale — something of personal interest connected 
with almost every one of the hundreds of buildings 
partially or wholly wrecked. The press at first exag- 
gerated, and perhaps finally minimized the loss of life. 
There is reason to think that not all the names of the 



INCIDENTS OF THE TORNADO. 93 

dead were given to the public, while subsequently several 
died of their wounds. To the list of those who were 
killed outright, or died in a few hours, better information 
might have added several names, and possibly subtracted 
or corrected others. 

The public may find in the press reports lists of the 
dead and numerous records of persons injured or killed 
by the fallings of walls, or by flying missiles ; but these, 
after all, must be regarded as exceptions. There can be 
no very correct estimate of the number of people who 
were in the down-town district at the time of the accident. 
Yet, it would be safe to say only a very small portion of 
those in the path of the storm suffered any injury. 

That a storm of such magnitude and fury should have 
swept through the heart of a city of 200,00/^ people, to 
destroy outright no more than five or six score lives, may 
excite our wonder. The most obvious reason of the lew 
mortality will be found in the hour and place of the prin- 
cipal visitation. The place was the business part of the 
city, and the hour between eight and nine p. m., when the 
wholesale houses and the streets in their vicinity were 
comparatively deserted. Another fact is also to be noted. 
The cyclone seems to have reached the ground scarcely at 
any point at all. Its principal fury was probably expended 
in the region above the housetops. The roofs and tops of 
walls were removed ; the damage below resulted princi- 
pally from their fall. Humbler buildings sheltering 
human lives were sometimes crushed by the fall of the 
upper portion of the wall of some contiguous building ; 
as notably, in the case of the house occupied by the laun- 
dry girls, and which was smashed by the fall of the wall 
from the top story of the Louisville Hotel ; or the case of 
a colored family whose house was crushed by the wall of 
the Fails City Hall. But in any case of cyclonic visita- 



94 



GREAT DISASTERS. 




INCIDENTS OF THE TORNADO. 95 

tion the escapes will probably amaze us more than the 
deaths; for when it will seem that nothing living could 
have escaped, the majority will not only probably be found 
alive, but absolutely unhurt. Of numerous cases, a few 
specimens will suffice: 

Peter Speth and family were seated in the parlor when 
the cyclone arrived. The family huddled together in the 
hall, doubtless to avail themselves of the protection of the 
side walls not far apart. The walls of the second story 
fell in with a crash. The building and furniture were 
destroyed, but the family escaped without injury. 

Eleven men were in a barber shop at 1803 Broadway. 
The roof was blown off; the walls fell in, but all the men 
escaped through the windows without a scratch. 

At 329 Eleventh street, on the upper floor of a two- 
story brick, a lady lay at the point of death; watched 
by her son and daughter. She begged them to flee for 
their lives, but they refused to forsake her. The roof was 
stripped clean off, but the devoted children with their 
mother escaped injury. 

In one cottage on Chapel street dwelt a family of five. 
At once all were in the house, when the storm demolished 
it, and four escaped unhurt. 

Major Gait, of the Louisville and Nashville Road, lived 
in a two-story brick. He apprehended no danger till the 
walls fell. His wife was buried under a pile of bricks. 
Her husband with difficulty extricated her, and carried 
her unconscious to the house of a neighbor. Save for the 
shock, she was not seriously hurt. 

Now, w r ere such cases the exception — had not such 
instances happened in a hundred other places similarly 
visited — there would certainly be cause for perplexity. 
But the phenomena of the Louisville storm tend only to 
establish the truth of a fact long suspected: that the most 



96 



9REAT DISASTERS. 




INCIDENTS OF THE TORNADO. 97 

destructive effects of a tornado are not always attributable 
to the direct force of the wind. A number of interesting 
incidents of the Louisville storm will serve to illustrate a 
now clearly established fact. 

Mrs. Fitzpatrick and her family were in a two-story 
brick, 1433 Seventeenth street. They were all in an 
upper room and could not get out. The walls fell out- 
ward, while the floor still remained in its place. They 
climbed down unhurt. 

James Smith (colored) lived with his wife and seven 
children in Congress Alley, in the rear of Falls City Hall. 
Himself, his wife and three children were crushed beneath 
the mass of bricks and timbers ; the remaining four chil- 
dren were taken out more dead than alive. Yet, the house 
was not in the least moved from its place. The building 
was crushed by the wall of the hall, which fell outward. 
Similar was the fate of the laundry girls. The house in 
which they were was crushed by the top of the wall of the 
Louisville Hotel, which fell outward, toward the wind. 

The colored Odd Fellows were holding a meeting in 
their hall at Thirteenth and Walnut. The two upper 
stories were blown entirely down. Several large circular 
holes were blown through the brick walls; one of these in 
the side away from the storm. Several received more or 
less injury, but not one was fatally hurt. 

At 1315 Eighteenth street, was a magnificent new brick 
cottage. The roof remained, but in the west wall were 
made "six holes, round as a dollar, and large enough to 
admit a flour barrel." It is added that the missing bricks 
were nowhere to be found. 

Finally, take the experience of a grocer on West Mar- 
ket street : 

" I was inside of my store, and my clerk was there, too. 
Standing on the pavement outside were policeman Harlow, 

7 



98 GREAT DISASTERS. 

a man named Charles Taylor, who said he lived in Jeffer- 
sonville, a negro whose name I do not know, and Carl Rice, 
an eight-year-old boy who lived with his parents in the 
rooms above my store. When the wind grew high and the 
hail began to pelt, Mr. Harlow attempted to open the front 
door of the store, which was closed, to come inside for 
shelter. At that moment the tornado came in all its 
fury. No one who was not in it can conceive of its ter- 
rific force. The suction from without, as the full force 
came, was so great that it was impossible to get the front 
door open. My clerk at work on it on the inside and Mr. 
Harlow on the outside, were as powerless against the wind 
as babies would have been in attempting to move a stone 
wall. 

" But their efforts were not of long duration. The tor- 
nado forced its way in the rear of the upper stories of my 
building, and with impetuosity unequaled forged through 
the apartments against the front wall. This wall popped 
out and fell to the pavement below, upon those standing 
there, burying them in the debris. The front is entirely 
gone, as you see. Mr. Harlow and the little boy Carl 
Rice, were close up to to the front door, and only a small 
portion of the wall struck them. Taylor and the negro 
were out on the pavement further, and they fared worse. 
Taylor's leg was broken at the ankle, and he was internally 
injured. The negro had a hole knocked in his skull larger 
than a silver dollar, and was used up generally. Mr. 
Harlow was bruised, but fortunately has no bones broken, 
and is not dangerously hurt. The little boy's head was 
pretty badly cut and bruised, but he is not in a serious con- 
dition." 

Now, in all of these cases is noticeable the same peculiar 
feature of walls falling outward, sometimes even against 
the wind : or of holes being burst in walls, the bricks being 



INCIDENTS OF THE TORNADO. 



99 




100 GREAT DISASTERS. 

thrown so far that they could not be found, or distinguished 
from those of other houses. This might seem inexplica- 
ble — that the windward walls often fall outward. But it 
must be remembered that all storms with a wind system 
blowing spirally upward and inward are characterized by 
low barometer, signifying a diminution in atmospheric 
pressure at the storm center ; and the lower the barometer, 
the more violent the storm. Now, it is clear that if a 
storm advance slowly, and be widely diffused, the air in 
the regions through which it moves has time to accommo- 
date itself gradually to the change, and expanding slowly 
to equalize the pressure in all directions, its rarefaction is 
not perceptible to the ordinary observer : and the denser 
air within a dwelling expands so gradually that all the 
surplus can escape through chinks and crevices, if the 
doors and windows be closed. 

But the narrow-path tornado comes so rapidly as to 
produce little atmospheric change beforehand ; while di- 
rectly at its center the barometer may stand as much as 
two inches lower than in the surrounding region. Now, a 
fall of two inches means, in round numbers, a lessening of 
pressure of one pound to every square inch, or one hundred 
and forty-four pounds to the square foot. As the air 
normally presses equally in all directions, the passage of 
a storm of this sort may mean a sudden change from 
fifteen pounds pressure to the inch on each side of a wall, 
to fifteen pounds on the inside and fourteen only on the 
outside. When such a sudden change is brought to bear 
on every square inch of the interior of a house, it neces- 
sarily amounts to an explosion. 

Suppose that in the case of the door which the men 
were unable to open, that the pressure had been as great 
as one pound to the inch. Then an ordinary seven-by- 
three door would be held in place by a force of a ton and a 



INCIDENTS OF THE TOKNADO. 101 

half. This same power has been observed to burst the 
weather-boarding from frame houses, leaving the frame 
and inner surfaces intact. 

The reader will wonder why, in such cases, the windows 
do not burst out, leaving the walls unhurt. This often 
occurs. But very great pressure would evidently act just 
as does powder in a blast : the rock is rent ere the tamping 
is torn out, though the latter has far less resistive power ; 
while very violent explosives do not even need any tamp- 
ing in order to utilize their force. 

It would seem, then, that a house with open doors and 
windows has a better chance of weathering a tornado, 
whether in respect to direct impact of wind, or to the ex- 
pansive force of air within, than a house which is shut up. 
Here, again, quite a number of instances can be adduced 
of houses caught suddenly thus by tornadoes and escaping 
unhurt, while houses upon either side were demolished. 

But that the direct force of the wind on the Louisville 
occasion was very great is abundantly evidenced. Numer- 
ous are the apparently curious freaks that were noticed. 
A city paper, four days after the storm, contained the fol- 
lowing : 

" There are hundreds of the most interesting and mirac- 
ulous incidents connected with the tornado, showing the 
queerest sort of freaks of the wind. A block of iron cast- 
ing, weighing over one hundred and fifty pounds, was blown 
into the second story of the Chesapeake, Ohio and Southern 
Railway building, near the Union Depot. Nobody knows 
where it came from, and the nearest building from which it 
could have come is nearly one hundred yards away. Great 
sheets of tin roofing were dropped upon Dr. Barry's farm 
near Turner's Station, forty miles from the city, on the 
Short Line. In the ruins of a house on West Main street 
a clock was found clinging to the wall. It was a large 



102 



GREAT DISASTERS. 




INCIDENTS OF THE TORNADO. 103 

office clock, but no one in the vicinity had ever seen it 
before, and no one knows where it came from. It was 
badly broken, but the hands still pointed to 8:20 p. m. A 
large slab of marble was found in a residence on West 
Madison street which was never there before. It will weigh 
over one hundred pounds. At Baird's drug store on Market 
above Ninth, two bird cages with the birds were blown in 
through the skylight. The cages were not injured, and 
the birds are as full of song as ever. When the building 
occupied by Brand & Bethel, the tobacco men of Green 
street, went to pieces, a portion of the frame-work dropped 
through the roof of a little cottage just east of the factory. 
It consisted of a heavy timber, to which were mortised 
four upright pieces of timber. When this came through 
the cottage the family were sitting around the table in the 
dining-room, and the four uprights simply pinned them in 
but did not hurt them in the least. It was one of the 
most wonderful escapes yet heard of." 

To the unexperienced reader some of these items seem 
almost apocryphal. But when it is remembered that a 
tallow candle may be shot through a deal board, or that 
an ox may be killed by a putty-ball fired from a gun, or 
that a revolver loaded with water instead of ball is a deadly 
weapon, it will not seem preposterous that a cage may be 
hurled through a skylight without seriously discommoding 
the birds. The writer has seen soft pine shingles driven 
endwise through oak boards an inch thick by a Missouri 
tornado. Other similar cases might be given. 

The carrying of objects to a distance depends as much 
on the upward current as the horizontal motion. One of 
the simplest illustrations of the inevitable spiral course 
that an upward or downward current pursues may be seen 
in the ordinary wash-bowl with hole in the bottom. As 
soon as the plug is drawn and the water commences to 



104 



GREAT DISASTERS. 




INCIDENTS OF THE TOENADO 105 

pour out, it begins to assume a spiral course ; and, long- 
before the water is out, there is a circular hole in the 
fluid, reaching to the bottom of the basin. This last 
illustrates also that the air is rarest at the center of the 
storm. Pouring liquids through a funnel will show the 
same spiral tendency. So an object borne away by a 
tornado rises in curves much like those of a hawk or 
eagle in flying. 

Other peculiar feats of the wind were noticed. Some 
persons caught by the storm, had no especial trouble in 
keeping on their feet; while others were knocked about 
severely. One man was killed by having his throat cut 
by a piece of flying glass. A frame house, standing near 
the corner of Eighteenth and Maple, was shot full of holes 
by flying bricks from another house a hundred yards away. 
A lady standing in the doorway was picked up by the 
wind and hurled against a telegraph pole at a distance of 
sixty feet. Another lady and her nephew, at the first 
shock rushed into the street. They were caught up by the 
wind and hurled some distance against a fence. They 
were found unconscious and both badly hurt. 

A frame house on Sixteenth street looked as if it had 
suffered bombardment. Holes were cut in the weather- 
boarding by planks evidently driven through the air end- 
wise, and pieces several feet long had penetrated and stuck 
hard and fast. 

The building of the Louisville City Railway at Twelfth 
and Jefferson streets was scooped through the middle, 
while the ends were left standing. This was, perhaps, due 
to the explosive force of the air within, which burst out 
the weaker portions. In a building of any considerable 
length, the points most easily overthrown by lateral pres- 
sure would naturally be found in the middle portions of the 
longer walls. 



106 GREAT DISASTERS 

At a stone-yard on Walnut, between Thirteenth and 
Fourteenth, the immense iron " traveler," with its locomo- 
tive — the whole weighing many tons — mounted on an 
elevated track and used for transferring immense blocks 
of stone from one side of the yard to the other, was blown 
into the street and smashed to pieces, while close by, three 
small brick buildings and one frame were left unharmed. 
Such cases show how the larger obstacles cause the storm 
to somewhat overleap the smaller ones, producing the 
"jumping" motion mentioned before. The narrow path 
of the storm may be judged from the fact that no small 
portion of the good people of Louisville were not aware of 
the ruinous tempest till they read of its deeds in the 
morning papers. 

The total damage done to property is estimated at 
$2,000,000, Much the heaviest loss was among the great 
tobacco warehouses. 

There has been some discussion as to whether any sort 
of buildings are safe in a storm : but so long as the most 
violent tropical cyclones leave many houses unhurt after a 
protracted gale, there is little fear that the walls of our 
large buildings may not readily be made massive enough 
to withstand any atmospheric storms. 

The chief damage done to business houses was along 
Main, Jefferson and Walnut streets ; the damage to dwell- 
ings being greatest along Broadway. The havoc on all 
the crossings in the limits of the tornado was remarkable. 

It was observed that the buildings on the north sides of 
the streets parallel to the river suffered most. These more 
nearly faced the advancing storm, while the open street 
in front of them gave the wind an increased advantage. 
This will be better comprehended if the reader will recol- 
lect that the tornado of the northern hemisphere rotates 
in a direction contrary to the hands of a watch. So in 



INCIDENTS OF THE TORNADO. 107 

the case of one moving eastward or northeastward, the 
wind on the front edge is blowing directly northward or 
northwestward. So the current, slightly broken in pass- 
ing through a block, regains its strength somewhat in 
slanting across the next street, and assaults the next block 
with renewed force. 

Louisville, though the principal sufferer by the storm, 
was not the first. The tornado formed some distance to 
the southwest of the city, and on its devastating march 
toward Louisville mowed clean a wide swath through the 
woods, and fell upon the beautiful suburb of Parkland. 
The Mayor's two-story brick residence parted with its roof 
at the first shock. The Mayor's wife was up-stairs in bed, 
ill of pneumonia. Her husband and another man seized 
the bed and carried her into the yard. Scarcely was this 
accomplished when the full force of the storm prostrated 
the building. 

It may be noticed in this connection, that the most 
destructive wind is never in the first shock, the parting 
gust being usually the most damaging. Doubtless this is 
because the expansion of the atmosphere within the house 
at the moment the center of calm passes over it weakens 
the building to such an extent that the rear of the tornado, 
striking the house from the opposite direction, readily 
overthrows it. No such peculiarity is observable in a 
forest. The trees, containing no vast quantities of air, are 
usually felled by the first stroke, if at all. 

The track of the storm through Parkland was one- 
eighth of a mile wide. From the rate at which it spread, 
it is clear it could be but short-lived. Within its path, it 
was more destructive in Parkland than in Louisville. 
The frame school-house was lifted from its foundation, 
carried a few feet away, and then torn to fragments. The 
Daisy Line depot was totally demolished. The Masonic 



108 



GREAT DISASTERS. 



Temple parted with its upper story. Thirteen houses in 
the village were completely wrecked, and several others 
more or less damaged. It will be remembered that in 
Louisville the upper stories suffered most: but here the 
storm was fresh, and almost every building struck was 
razed to the ground. The total damage was about $20,000. 




G°^ E 



R-°F 



.PROMT AND MULBERHV STREFT 



view at .jh:fkei;sonvili,e. 



Passing through Louisville and crossing the river, the 
cyclone struck Jeffersonville, on the Indiana side. Here, 
upwards of eighty houses were seriously damaged, and 
quite a number totally destroyed. Two days later, the 
press gave the loss at $500,000 — probably a great exagger- 
ation, as the particulars given did not tally at all with the 
general statement. Singularly enough, not a life was lost, 
and only one or two persons were materially injures. 



INCIDENTS OF THE TORNADO. 



109 



The damage was mostly to roofs and top-stories, and the 
people were doubtless indoors and below. This, however, 
does not account for the deliverance of a number of per- 
sons in buildings which were completely destroyed. Pos- 
sibly some of these may be accounted for by sudden 
explosions of buildings, such as has been noticed hereto- 
fore. The fragments would be much more apt to injure 
persons just outside than those within. The largely in- 
creased percentage of damage done to roofs and upper sto- 




'to* 



CONNER WALL AND FRONT STREETS, JEFFERSONVILLE. 

ries only shows how rapidly the storm was weakening. It 
could not go very much farther with its devastation. The 
old Orphans' Home was wrecked ; one old lady injured ; a 
pastor's house demolished, while two men in the upper 
story in some myterious way escaped unhurt. At the foot 
of Front street, a shanty occupied by a man with wife and 
three children was lifted bodily and thrown into the river. 
The family would have been drowned had not some car- 
works employes rescued them, at the peril of their own 
lives. A number of guests, and some who came for shelter, 



110 



GREAT DISASTERS. 



were in a house at the corner of First and Spring streets. 
The shock of the tornado was followed by a hail of bricks 
and tumbling walls, but no one of the entire assembly was 
seriously hurt. 

The average American worships no god but Mammon. 
He may go to church and bow his head to Jehovah, but it 
is Mammon who keeps his heart. Between his devout 




t8« ^ 



WRECK AT JEFFERSONVIELE. 



amens he is thinking of the main chance. He can be 
converted and made religious ; it is a great deal harder to 
make him honest. He is willing to sing the praises of 
the Lord, but he doesn't like to foot the bills. Amid the 
sorrow and bereavement of a stricken city, the American 
was true to himself. Tliose who had lost house and friends, 
were asked to pay ten dollars for a carriage in which to 



INCIDENTS OF THE TORNADO. Ill 

follow the corpse to the grave. As about thirty victims of 
the storm were buried on Sunday, it may be inferred that 
the carriages in each procession were none too numerous. 
A sad sight was that of the four laundry girls, and the 
chamber-maid, all being borne together to their long home. 
Hardly less impressive was the burial at half-hour inter- 
vals of ten members of the I. O. O. F., killed in Falls 
City Hall. It was a profitable day for undertakers. 

Nor did the officers of the Louisville and Southern 
Railroad forget their interests. They had for some time 
been desirous of regaining possession of their property 
controlled by the Monon Route. This they did in the 
confusion, dismay and darkness, immediately following the 
storm. 

The writer does not wish to do any injustice to his peo- 
ple. Such items present but one side of the American's 
character. He is a strange mixture of grasping greed and 
warm-hearted generosity. The latter is an inborn trait ; 
the former in-drilled. We live in a rushing age*. We 
are no more in a hurry about being rich than we are about 
a score of other things. Haste is a national characteristic. 

Further, our people are brought up with peculiar ideas 
of success in life. Everything is reduced to a basis of cold 
cash. A man may be learned, talented, industrious; but 
all these things are counted for naught if he is not also 
wealthy. So our young people are brought up to think 
that money-making is the one business of life ; and as a 
result the business world is full of those who resort to 
sharp practice and questionable methods, merely because 
they have been taught to subordinate honor and equity to 
gain-getting. Yet, the warm sympathies and native gen- 
erosity of our people are continually coming to the front, 
in a way that, in view of the other traits, is sometimes 
amusingly inconsistent. Men who will haggle almost 



112 



GREAT DISASTERS. 




INCIDENTS OF THE TORNADO. H3 

about the price of a pin, or make their living by wild or 
fraudulent speculation ; nay, even professional gamblers, 
or worse characters, are prompt in responding to the wail 
of a distressed city or state. After all, we are brethren. 
Yet, our good and bad qualities are so thoroughly mingled 
that we must continually rob Peter to pay. Paul. 

The American has another prominent trait — independ- 
ence. He does not accept aid, as such, when he feels he 
can do without it : nor does he wait for demands of help, 
when he hears of great misfortunes that have befallen his 
fellow countrymen. Leigh Hunt once asked a very rag- 
ged and forlorn Irishman, " Why don't you ask for alms ? " 
" Alms, is it ? Sure and isn't it begging I am with every 
bone of my body ? " The average American is generally 
quick to recognize a case that speaks for itself. To Louis- 
ville, in the hour of her calamity, came tenders of help 
from many quarters, and these offers would have been 
greatly multiplied, had not the citizens declined the prof- 
fered assistance. They felt that the resources of the city 
were equal to the necessity. They were grateful, but self- 
reliant. 



CHAPTER VII. 

OTHER TORNADOES. 

" From the dark earth impervious vapors rise, 
Increase the darkness and involve the skies. 
At once the rushing winds, with roaring sound, 
Burst from th' ./Eolian caves and rend the ground ; 
With equal rage their airy quarrel try, 
And win by turns the kingdom of the sky. 
But with a thicker night black Auster shrouds 
The heavens, and drives on heaps the rolling clouds, 
From whose dark womb a rattling tempest pours, 
Which the cold north congeals to haily showers. 
From pole to pole the thunder roars aloud, 
And broken lightnings flash from every cloud. 
Now smokes with showers the misty mountain ground, 
And floated fields lie undistinguished 'round. 
Where late was dust, now rapid torrents play — 
Rush through the mounds, and bear the dams away. 
Old limbs of trees, from crackling forests torn. 
Are whirled in air, and on the winds are borne." 

CASUAL glance at the papers during the last days 
of March would have satisfied any one that the 
storm which passed over the country was anything but 
insignificant. So far, we have given only the story of a 
single neighborhood ; while a score of others suffered more 
or less. A brief account of some of these will be of inter- 
est, and will give us a far better idea of the character of 
great storms and tornadoes. 

The farthest point west touched by a tornado on that 
memorable day was a strip near the line between Missouri 
and Kansas, some fifty or sixty miles south of Kansas 
City. Here, a small tornado made its appearance about 
five o'clock in the afternoon, demolishing some fences and 

114 



OTHER TORNADOES. 



115 




116 GREAT DISASTERS. 

barns, and breaking down a few trees : but, so far as known, 
no one was hurt. Meanwhile, the main storm had passed 
eastward much earlier in the afternoon. 

Shortly after the storm reached St. Louis, violent 
cyclonic movements were excited in southeast Missouri, 
upwards of a hundred miles away. At 3 p. m. the little 
town of Bloomsdale was struck, and five houses were in- 
stantly prostrated. The occupants of four of them were, at 
the time, in the Catholic church, and the family who occu- 
pied the [fifth escaped unhurt. Two sides of their house 
were blown away ; while one side was blown inward, and 
would have crushed them but for chairs and tables which 
sustained its weight. The church suffered the loss of its 
steeple, and was otherwise damaged. A stable containing 
seven horses was blown away, and not one of the horses 
was injured. 

A cloud gathered, and a cyclone seemed to form at, or 
over, Charleston. It followed the Cairo branch of the 
Iron Mountain Road eastward. Four miles from Charles- 
ton it struck the flag-station known as Hough's, having 
on the way demolished one or two farm-houses, and made 
havoc of the forest. The little hamlet of Hough's was 
razed from the earth, not a house being left intact. One 
dwelling was blown two hundred feet across the railway 
track and smashed. The owner, his wife and son were 
killed, and another son was badly injured. The three- 
year-old baby was taken up unharmed. Another family 
lived near by in a log house. It was blown away, and 
they were left sitting on the floor, wondering. 

Such a case as this is by no means rare. It is one of 
the many freaks of the wind not easily understood. In 
the great cyclone of forty or fifty miles in diameter, the 
wind comes in gusts or waves, and such effects might be 
readily understood ; but in the case of the tornado, of at 



OTHER TORNADOES. 117 

most but a few hundred yards in diameter, its passage is 
too rapid for those in its path to learn definitely whether 
it be uniform or not. 

Other peculiar feats were noticed at Hough's. A girl 
seventeen years old was blown one hundred and fifty yards 
into a £>ond, but was rescued in time to save her from 
drowning; and it is said that a man and woman were blown 
across a sixty-acre wheat field, and picked up insensible. 
The further statement that the bark was peeled clean from 
the trees, though seemingly most incredible of all, is very 
probably true ; for the writer has a vivid recollection of 
precisely the same phenomenon on the theater of the 
Marshfield cyclone in southwest Missouri. In that instance 
the bark was peeled from hundreds of hickory saplings, 
almost from the roots to their topmost twigs. This effect 
was inconceivable from any cause that could be thought 
of. It was done by missiles flying through the air, or the 
trees were bent over and threshed against the ground, or 
there was some unknown force prevalent in the storm, 
similar, perhaps, to that which shatters the bark or body 
of a thunder-smitten oak. To an observer on the ground 
the first two suppositions seemed to be excluded. Is this 
peculiar power of the tornado to be sought, like that of 
Keely's Motor, in some occult force ? 

From Hough's Station the tornado may have bounded 
above the tree-tops and descended again a few miles 
further on at Bird's Point, opposite to Cairo, Illinois. 
Anyhow, a tornado struck the former place at 4:35 p. m. 
It was first seen above the trees, it showed a yellowish cast, 
and had the usual funnel shape. About three hundred 
yards from the town it came to the ground and commenced 
its work of destruction. Eight or ten houses were blown 
to pieces, or badly damaged ; a roof was carried two hun- 
dred feet into the air ; a yearling calf was thrown forty 



118 



GRKAT DISASTERS. 




OTHER TORNADOES. 119 

feet into a big ditch filled with water, and — nobody was 
hurt. 

At Cape Girardeau, on the Mississippi, fifty miles above 
Bird's Point, there was a tremendous hail, which broke 
thousands of windows, and a gale lasting far into the 
night, with damage to timber, fences, and buildings. 

Illinois suffered far worse than Missouri. The southern 
part of the state fared badly ; and the further south, the 
worse. The storm which struck St. Louis at 3 p. m., was, 
a few minutes later, giving the Illinois towns on the other 
side a lively experience. Edwardsville, O'Fallon and 
Centerville received a heavy gale. At Coulterville, build- 
ings, barns, and orchards suffered severely, and several 
persons were injured. Sparta was struck about 3:15 p. m. 
From the second story of the public school building, ob- 
servers watched the approach of the storm. Two black 
clouds from opposite quarters of the heavens came together, 
as by attraction, and mingled with a rotary motion. The 
tornado passed within a mile of the town on the northeast, 
and mowed a swath through the heavy timber. No such 
rain, hail and wind, mingled with fire, had ever been seen 
before - Many barns were destroyed ; several houses were 
blown to pieces ; three or four persons were seriously hurt. 
A traveling man was whisked out of his buggy by the 
wind, carried some distance, and sustained severe injuries; 
the horses were thrown down, and the buggy was com- 
pletely wrecked. 

At Grand Tower, on the Mississippi, forty miles above 
Cape Girardeau, there was a terrific tornado at 4:30 p. m. 
It came from the west, and swept houses, trees, trains — 
everything, in its course. Its track is described as one of 
" extreme desolation." Four or five persons, at least, were 
killed, and as many injured. Twenty-seven dwelling- 
houses were completely demolished, and a great many 
others unroofed, or otherwise damaged. 



120 GREAT DISASTERS. 

At Murphysboro, Illinois, many windows were broken 
by the great hail ; while there came an unverified report 
of fifteen or more persons killed about Shiloh, and to the 
north of Campbell Hill. South of Murphysboro, several 
houses were blown down ; two children were killed. 

At Centralia, two and one-fourth inches of rain fell in 
twenty minutes, changing later into snow. Farm build- 
ings west of town suffered considerable damage. 

At Carbondale, the dreaded funnel appeared, and two 
blocks of houses were unroofed. 

Five miles southwest of Xenia, many out-buildings were 
blown down and several houses destroyed. A school- 
house on the prairie was blown away, and one of the sills 
carried nearly a quarter of a mile. 

In the southern part of Union county, seven miles 
southwest of Anna, a tornado swept a track about half a 
mile wide and four miles long, over the richest farms, de- 
stroying stock, orchards, forests and houses. One or two 
persons were fatally hurt. At Mt. Pleasant, twelve miles 
east of Anna, there was extensive destruction of property. 

At Braidwood, a number of houses and out-buildings 
were blown away ; trees were torn up, several persons 
severely injured, and two or three children are said to have 
"disappeared." The writer remembers an instance that 
occurred some years ago, when a fourteen-year-old boy 
was carried five miles and dropped into a stream : but such 
a case does not occur in this country once in many years. 
One of the freaks told of the wind at Braidwood is, that it 
rolled a man in the road and whisked a watch out of his 
pocket. It does not appear that any funnel-shaped cloud 
was seen here. 

At Cairo, out of a fleet of shanty-boats, thirteen were 
destroyed, and an old cripple was drowned. 

The storm struck Nashville (111.) at 4 p. m. The rain, 



OTHER TORNADOES. 



121 




122 GREAT DISASTERS. 

changing to furious hail, fell so fast that one could scarcely 
see ten feet. The wind blew with terrific force. The 
Prohibition Tabernacle and a two-story brick cooper shop 
went down. Beginning six miles southeast on Little 
Prairie, the damage was fearful, and ranged through a 
sweep, to the northeast, of twenty miles. Not less than 
thirty houses were destroyed, and twice that number badly 
damaged. Of numerous casualties, one or two will illus- 
trate the force of the wind at this place : One family of 
seven were sitting in their house as the storm drew near. 
Two of the little girls becoming frightened, ran out, when 
the wind caught them up, carried them across a field a 
quarter of a mile wide, and dropped them uninjured, save 
from violent pelting of the hail. As the remaining mem- 
bers of the family were in the act of forsaking the house, 
it fell, and all were more or less hurt. 

This case would seem to indicate a lack of uniformity 
in the strength of the wind ; it being powerful enough at 
one point to carry away children, while the house, only a 
few feet away at most, was still standing. One or two 
other cases of persons being carried a considerable distance 
were reported from Nashville. 

All such instances show the powerful upward current 
of the tornado ; for wind of greater horizontal velocity is 
often observed, which produces no such effects. To the 
uplifting force must be in some degree attributed the fact 
that in many cases only roofs or upper stories are dam- 
aged. This same force is responsible for not a few showers 
of objects that do not pertain to the upper air : such as the 
occasionally reported showers of fish and frogs. 

A tornado swept up Bay Bottom in Pope county, ac- 
companied by " rain and hail in floods and volleys." A 
partial report shows a school-house dashed against a bluff 
a hundred feet away and reduced to kindling-wood. A 



OTHER TORNADOES. 123 

number of residences were destroyed, and several persons 
were killed. 

In all the cases hitherto noted, the tornado, when seen, 
is reported as about one-eighth of a mile wide. The next 
one on the list, while powerful, is much smaller. 

The southwest part of Olney was devastated by a cyclone 
at 5:35 p. m. Its track was about a hundred yards wide 
and a mile long. It shattered or destroyed the homes of, 
perhaps, five hundred people. Strange to relate, only two 
or three persons were badly hurt. John Bourrell was voted 
the wisest man. His house was blown to atoms ; but he 
and his wife were safe in their " cyclone cellar," and ab- 
sorbing much comfort from a $600 cyclone policy on their 
building. 

But the climax of ruin for Illinois was reached at Me- 
tropolis, a town of 4,000 people, situated on the Ohio 
River, thirty-eight miles above Cairo, and eleven miles 
below Paducah. A greenish tinge of the approaching 
cloud was the only unusual portent. " Suddenly there 
came from the southwest a rolling, apparently born of the 
union of two clouds, which met in mid-air, and in a mo- 
ment swooped down into the Ohio river, now at flood-tide, 
and on lifting, there followed it a column of water, esti- 
mated all the way from fifty to two hundred feet in height." 
This curious phenomenon swept onward, striking the river 
front like the hammer of a Cyclop. In an instant, down 
went a large number of buildings, including principal 
business houses, and the finest residences of the city. A 
few persons were seriously hurt, and two or three were 
killed. Of course, there were wonderful escapes. One 
gentleman had a numerous array of little children ; the 
house was swept from over the family, and not a soul was 
hurt. In the country the devastation was even more ap- 
palling. Residences, out-buildings, churches, even grave- 
stones were wiped from the face of the earth. 



124 



GREAT DISASTERS. 



A relief committee was organized. In their dispatch of 
two days later, addressed to the St. Louis Republic news- 
paper, and praying for help, they say : " Hundreds of 
homes, the result of a life of labor, have been swept away 
in less time than it takes to record it. All kinds of prop- 
erty have been destroyed. The damage is estimated at 
over $200,000." 

Such is a partial list of the more important casualties 




PATH OP TORNADO— OLNEY, ILL. 

of the great storm. Space is lacking to give detail to al! 
the minor visitations and incidents. Such storms only 
attract the attention of the public when some thickly-set- 
tled region is visited. Numerous hamlets and small towns 
might be named, of which nothing but the bare fact that a 
tornado passed through is recorded. The rural districts 
are, of course, far more frequently swept ; but the narrow- 
ness and short path of the tornado preclude its doing much 
damage among them. 



OTHER TORNADOES. 125 

Now, we have noticed a dozen different localities, all 
experiencing much the same sort of storms. The unthink- 
ing person might deem all this devastation the work of a 
single storm. Such is the case : but a distinction must be 

O ma 

made between the storm itself, and the tornadoes produced 
by it. That there were various tornadoes entirely distinct, 
or independent of each other, the reader may clearly per- 
ceive, by examining the foregoing pages. It will be 
noticed that in several cases the tornado was seen to form 
near the spot devastated ; and further may be noted the 
hours at which the whirlwinds appeared. For instance, 
the one which passed near Shawneetown, Missouri, came 
later than most of those in Illinois; yet all moved toward 
the northeast. A brief review of the main storm will be 
of interest, and show how the various tornadoes were pro- 
duced. 

It has already been stated that the storm originated 
somewhere about the southwest corner of Wyoming. Here, 
as early as Wednesday morning, the Signal Service ob- 
served an area of very low barometer. It moved rapidly 
eastward, with a trend toward the south, passing in the 
vicinity of Denver, Kansas City, and St. Louis, thence 
northeast through the central part of Indiana to Lake 
Erie. The central path of the storm was a violent and 
progressive movement of the air, doing in its passage tri- 
fling damage in some localities. The cyclonic movements 
which did the principal mischief, were all to the south of 
the storm center, and were local and violent motions of the 
air about an axis, while yet there was a progressive move- 
ment from southwest to northeast. 

Now, these lesser whirlwinds are produced in exactly 
the same way as the great cyclones of many miles in diam- 
eter, which we have already seen do not originate on land 
often, because of the irregularities of surface that hinder. 



126 



GREAT DISASTERS. 



But the local currents of wind, in meeting, produce the 
whirling motion. Compare with the moving of a current 
of water. Every river forms eddies along the bank, which 
move a short distance down and toward the main current, 
and then break up. Consider the great area of low barom- 
eter moving eastward, and it will be seen that the local 
tornadoes, suddenly forming and moving but a few miles, 
are simply eddies on its edge. It is easy to watch these 



r, 



WvKfe^ $k 



Wmhr . J? 




SCENE AT OLNEY, ILL. 



produced on a small scale ; for nature's principles are the 
same in small and great: when we have mastered the 
atom, we have mastered the whole object. 

Let one observe a great fire in a forest or prairie. On 
the outskirts of newly burned areas, when the air has been 
rarefied by heat, may be seen sudden and violent move- 
ments about a point, as though there was a spirit in the 
wind. In a moment it has lifted the ashes and scorched 



OTHER TORNADOES. 



127 



stalks, and whatever light matters were in its way, and 
circling, perhaps, wider and stronger for a time, has borne 
them onward and upward toward the heavens, where at 
length its force was dissipated, and it mingled with the 
surrounding air. Similar movements were excited along 
the southern limits of the storm area, which we are de- 
scribing ; and hence, not one cyclone, but more properly 
speaking, a multitude of little cyclones — tornadoes inde- 
pendent of each other, but dependent on the main current, 




WHIRLWIND FROM BURNT rRAIRIE. 



or great eastward traveling storm center — swept through 
points in Illinois, Missouri, Tennessee and Kentucky ; all 
rushing toward the line of the lowest barometrical depres- 
sion, the actual and advancing storm center. Not since 
the Signal Service had been established had the barometer 
at St. Louis stood so low as 28.46, which, reduced to sea- 
level, means 29.08. Toward this region of rarefied air — 
this partial vacuum — the cyclonic movements from the 
south rushed with inconceivable fury, and as the nucleus 
of the storm was rapidly moving eastward, the cyclonic 



128 GREAT DISASTERS. 

movements were turned from a north to a northeast course. 
All these varied movements simply result from the effort 
of a disturbed atmosphere to restore an equilibrium. 

The illustration of the fire used above also affords a 
good example of the way rotation may result from rising 
air. Any one who has watched a great fire in calm weather 
knows that sparks and smoke do not rise straight up, but 
in spirals and whirls, the warmer centers rising faster, just 
as the middle of a stream flows faster than the edge. 

But the powerful winds and the damage done were not 
all the work of the marginal whirlwinds. A storm center 
moving so rapidly must necessarily have carried a steady 
high wind. Leaving Wyoming, by Wednesday evening 
the storm was in the middle of Colorado ; on Wednesday 
night, it moved well into Kansas ; on Thursday, it crossed 
States of Missouri and Illinois, and Thursday night it was 
passing over Indiana. 

The climax of energy was apparently not attained until 
the storm reached Illinois. In Missouri, more or less 
damage was done to fences and buildings, from Sedalia to 
St. Louis. At the former place, a roof or two was blown 
off, and the teachers in one of the schools were so alarmed 
that they dismissed the children. Jefferson City, sixty 
miles further on, made a record of damaged roofs and 
shattered windows. At St. Louis, there was a deluge of 
rain at three o'clock in the afternoon, lasting a half hour ; 
.and the wind blew with fury during the evening and 
greater part of the night. It drove in and smashed some 
plate-glass windows, blew off an occasional roof, and from 
the top of the corner of St. Patrick's School, hurled to the 
sidewalk a stone weighing, probably, four hundred pounds. 

The story of the Louisville tornado serves to well illus- 
trate all the peculiar features of the local whirlwinds pro- 
duced by great storms. They seldom travel more than 



OTHER TORNADOES. 



129 



thirty miles ; usually much less. Sometimes as large as 
two miles in diameter, they seldom exceed five hundred 
yards; and one of but fifty yards in diameter may be 
powerful enough to wreck a house. 

Often it is possible to trace the path of a tornado through 
the forest a century or more after its passage; for the reason 
that trees once destroyed are usually replaced by different 
varieties. But the tornado usually originates in the open 
country, though after its formation it may sweep through 
heavy timber. 




TOKNADO FOLLOWED BY IIAIN STOKM. 



So far as loss of life is concerned, the tornado is much 
more to be feared than lightning. About two thousand 
people have been killed in this country within ten years 
by these rotary storms. Yet, all over the land, people put 
up rods that are expensive, and often worse than useless, 
as a precaution against lightning, when a small "cyclone 
cellar " could be dug that would be far more useful, and 
less expensive. While intense electrical displays accom- 
pany the tornado, there is no authentic record of lightning 
striking during one ; and as will be seen in another place, 
the amount of electricity present seems to be rather an 

9 



130 



GREAT DISASTERS 



effect than a cause : for rapid motion of gases may be made 
to produce powerful electric currents. 

While the tornado is justly feared in this country, yet, 
as a destructive agent, it is far surpassed by a number of 




others whose ravages are less dreaded. It would be com- 
paratively easy to show, we think, that more persons have 
been killed in one way or another by railways in ten years 
past than by tornadoes. 



OTHER TORNADOES, 131 

The one that has been so carefully examined must not be 
considered as the worst our country has known. An exam- 
ination of records of the past century will show a number 
that were more destructive to life and property. Doubt- 
less, an account of some of these would interest the reader. 
Place is given to a few. 

The tornado has been observed, to some extent, in this 
country for more than a century : but only when our cen- 
tral states were well peopled did it attract very great 
attention. It is not common in the eastern states, and 
but one has ever been recorded west of Dodge City, Kan- 
sas. It is not unknown in Europe, though far less com- 
mon than with us, having been noticed a few times in 
France. In general, it is so rare that a tornado that 
passed through Monville in 1845 attracted such attention 
as to be noticed in French text-books on physics. To the 
American, there is nothing unusual in the conduct of this 
storm. 

Perhaps the earliest detail of a storm of this sort among 
us is that of a double one in South Carolina, on the after- 
noon of May 2, 1761 : 

"The tornado crossed the Ashley River and swooped 
down upon the shipping at Rebellion Wharf with such 
fury as to threaten the destruction of the entire fleet. 
From the city, it was seen coming at first rapidly toward 
Wappo Creek, like a column of smoke, with a Ttery irreg- 
ular and tumultuous movement. The quantity of vapor 
which composed this column, and its prodigious velocity, 
produced such intense commotion that it agitated Ashley 
River to its depths and left the channel bare. The ebb 
and flow made the shipping float off to a great distance. 
When it struck the river, it made a noise like continuous 
thunder; its diameter, at that moment, was estimated 
at fifteen hundred feet, and its height, as seen at Charles- 



132 



GREAT DISASTERS. 




OTHER TORNADOES. 133 

ton, at twenty-five degrees. It was met at White Point 
by another whirlwind, which descended Cooper River, 
but was not equal to the first. When they came to- 
gether, the commotion in the air was much greater still ; 
the foam and the vapor seemed to be thrown to the height 
of forty degrees, while the clouds that hurried from all 
directions toward that point seemed to rush thither and 
whirl about at one and the same time, with incredible 
velocity. The meteor then darted on the shipping in the 
roadstead, and reached them in three minutes, although the 
distance was nearly six miles. Out of forty-five vessels, 
five were sunk on the spot ; the state ship, Dolphin, and 
eleven others were dismasted. The damage, estimated at 
more than £200,000, was done in a moment, and even the 
vessels that sank were swallowed up so rapidly that the 
peoj)le who were below had scarcely time to scramble up 
on deck. The whirlwind of Cooper River changed the 
course of the one that came from Wappo Creek, which, had 
it not been for that, would, proceeding in the same direc- 
tion, have swept away the city of Charleston before it like 
so much straw. 

"This terrible column was first perceived about noon, at 
more than fifty miles southwest of the roads. It destroyed 
everything in its way, making a complete avenue when it 
passed through the woods. The loss of the five ships was 
so sudden that it is not known whether it was the weight 
of the column of wind, or the mass of water driven upon 
them that made them go down." 

The tornado occasionally originates at sea and whirls 
up a heavy column of water for a few feet, which, meeting 
the dark funnel from above, presents the appearance of a 
pillar of water reaching the clouds. Not a few ignorant 
people once imagined that all rain originated from the 
water thus sucked up. These columns, or "water-spouts," 



134 GREAT DISASTERS. 

are generally a few feet in diameter, and may sometimes 
be broken by firing a cannon-ball through them. They 
are not ordinarily considered dangerous: but there are 
some exceptions, and it is not improbable that many a 
shijD that left port, never to be heard of again, has been 
overwhelmed by some gigantic water-spout. 

Of the most destructive tornadoes in the United States, 
Mississippi records the two leading ones. The first came 
on May 7, 1840, and Natchez was the principal sufferer, 
though other portions of Adams county were swept. The 
day began warm and cloudy, with the wind south, veering 
to east. At 2:15 p. m., the sky became a lurid yellow ; the 
storm striking the river six or seven miles below the city, 
did not reach it until 2 p.m. The rush of the wind did 
not last five minutes, and the destructive blast only a few 
seconds. Houses were burst outward ; three hundred and 
seventeen persons were killed in the city and on the river. 
Sheet tin was carried twenty miles, and windows thirty 
miles. One hundred and nine persons were badly injured, 
and property to the value of $1,260,000 destroyed. Most 
of the deaths resulted from drowning ; two steamers and 
sixty flatboats were sunk, while the city was flooded with 
nine inches of rain. Enormous hail-stones fell. A desk 
fastened with three locks, was blown open by the explosive 
force of the expanding air within. Another curious freak 
of this expansive power occurred in a tornado at New 
Brunswick. A towel hanging on the wall was found ap- 
parently blown nearly through it. The expanding air 
had driven the towel in a large crevice which opened in 
the wall behind it; and the crevice closed as the storm 
passed on, holding the towel to puzzle the neighborhood. 

The next great tornado visited Natchez, June 16, 1842, 
and killed five hundred people. 

Next to these, in destruction of life, is the famous 



OTHER TORNADOES. 



13' 




136 GREAT DISASTERS. 

Marslifield tornado of April, 1880, in which one hundred 
and one persons were killed, and six hundred injured. The 
town of Marslifield was literally wiped off the earth. This 
tornado is notable for its unusually wide path, and the 
large area traversed. Four counties were swept; and 
though the country was sparsely settled and comparatively 
little imjuroved, yet the damage to property was estimated 
at more than $1,000,000. Gen. Greely, of the Signal 
Service, pronounces it one of the most remarkable in the 
history of the United States. It formed at the junction 
of two streams, a few miles southwest of Marshfield; and, 
like the South Carolina tornado of 1761, owed its immense 
power to the union of two lesser storms that had traveled 
down the valleys of the respective streams. Such a tor- 
nado passing over a great city would equal the earthquake 
in disastrous effects. Perhaps a better idea of its power 
may be gathered from a comparison with the New Haven 
storm of 1878, which killed but thirty-four people and 
destroyed $2,000,000 worth of property — as much as the 
recent storm at Louisville. The remarkable feature about 
every tornado — the very small destruction of life — may 
be better understood when it is stated that, excluding the 
two Natchez tornadoes, where the number of houses 
wrecked is not known, and the Louisville storm, the 
twenty most destructive tornadoes in the United States 
have killed six hundred and thirteen people, and destroyed 
over three thousand houses. This brings us to the peculiar 
fact that but one person is killed in every five houses. As 
the average house may be counted as containing four per- 
sons, it appears that the chances that any single individual 
in a wrecked house will not be killed, are nineteen to one. 
While the mathematical calculation may be encouraging, 
yet few will care to take the risk of a tornado, even though 
the odds be vastly in their favor. People place little de- 



OTHER TORNADOES. 



137 



pendence in arithmetic as a life preserver. The recent 
Louisville storm presents a high average, as about fifty of 
the victims were taken from a single building. The low- 
est average is shown by the tornado that struck Camden, 
New Jersey, August 3d, 1885, when five hundred houses 
were destroyed, and but six persons killed : one for 
every eighty-three houses. In general, there seems to be 
a prevalence of a one to ten rate : but a storm in a city 
usually vastly increases the death rate by reason of the 
number of brick houses, which, when wrecked, fall much 
more compactly than frame buildings. 




MINNESOTA TORNADO, FORMING LATERAL SPURS. 

The greatest destruction of property has been in Ohio, 
where the aggregate now amounts to about $9,000,000. 
Next is Minnesota with $7,000,000, and Missouri and 
Mississippi with about $4,000,000 each. Missouri is first 
in respect to loss of life, and Mississippi next. The months 
most liable to tornadoes are May, April, June, and July, 
in order ; and the time of day the hottest ; that is, from 3 
to 5 p. M. 

These data suffice to show the peculiar acts of the tor- 
nado in our land. There is one case of a great storm 



138 GREAT DISASTERS. 

attended by tornadoes on its southeast border, that is even 
more noteworthy than the great one so minutely detailed 
in the preceding pages. A storm center passing over a 
wider region, on February 9, 1884, produced, after ten 
o'clock that day, over sixty tornadoes in Mississippi, Ala- 
bama, Georgia, South Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee, 
and North Carolina. Over ten thousand buildings were 
destroyed, eight hundred people killed, and twenty-five 
hundred wounded. The damage done by any single one 
was small, while the aggregate was fearful. 

The tornado is occasionally seen in Europe : but in the 
few instances recorded, it has been much smaller, and 
moved much slower than the same sort of storm in Amer- 
ica, though quite as powerful within the territory traversed. 
One that was very formidable, was observed near Bou- 
logne, in 1822. It moved about irregularly for an hour, 
tearing holes in the ground, snapping off trees, and twist- 
ing down houses ; yet, it was not twenty-five feet in diam- 
eter. Another one in 1872, swept through a little town 
in Italy, and was so powerful as to twist iron balcony rail- 
ings together like so many skeins of thread. Several 
persons were killed. 

In some portions of the Sahara and of Arabia, very 
numerous small whirlwinds accompany desert storms, 
whirling up the fine sand in dense columns, presenting 
the appearance of clouds in a region where clouds are un- 
known. So many writhing columns, swaying like danc- 
ing serpents, present a peculiarly terrifying aspect to the 
superstitious Arab, who has only too good reason to fear 
them. Strange tales of their destructiveness are rife. It 
is said that the army of Cambyses was overwhelmed by 
one of these desert storms. This story must, however, be 
taken "with a grain of salt." But there is no doubt that 
a sand storm is quite as dangerous as a Dakota blizzard. 



OTHER TORNADOES. 



139 




i'iV.i! !; .W l! 



"!!U; i. ; :!': : i ' '.;,;:',: (}"■, 



1 




140 GREAT DISASTERS. 

In tropical regions the tornado or " land-spout," as 
many Europeans call it, gives place to the great cyclone. 
Still, it appears occasionally. One which swept the suburbs 
of Calcutta, in 1838, was but a few yards in diameter; 
but in its march of sixteen miles, it killed two hundred 
and fifteen persons, wounded two hundred and thirty-three, . 
and destroyed one thousand two hundred and forty-five 
houses : thus displaying quite as great power as any tor- 
nado observed in our own land. The speed of rotation 
was so great that a bamboo cane was driven through a 
mud wall five feet thick, faced on both sides with brick ; 
as great penetrative power as is usually given to a six- 
pound cannon-ball. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

TROPICAL CYCLONES. 

"The Storm is on his way! 
With a lightning sword and a thunder shout, 
And his robe on the night-wind floating out, 
The Storm is on his way! 

The Storm is on his way! 
He smites, and the death-swept valleys groan, 
The ocean writhes, and the forests moan, — 

The Storm is on his way! " 

YHE preceding pages show only the destructive power 
of the small tornadoes of our land. We are fortu- 
nate in that the great cyclone is, comparatively, a rare 
visitor among us. A moment's consideration of this rav- 
ager, as he appears in the tropics, will show how trifling 
are the storms that have swept over our own land. A few 
examples will convince the most skeptical. 

Of the great cyclones which have traversed our country 
in recent times, we may mention the hurricane of October 
21-24, 1878. Gen. Greeley says: "It first damaged 
buildings and sank vessels at Havana. It entered the 
United States near Wilmington, N. C, and moving due 
north, passed over Washington and eastern Pennsylvania, 
after which it curved eastward, and crossing New England, 
left the coast near Portland, Maine. In Philadelphia, 
over seven hundred substantial buildings were totally 
destroyed, or seriously damaged, bridges injured, twenty- 
two vessels sunk, several persons injured, and eight killed, 
entailing a loss variously estimated from one to two mil- 
Hi 



142 GREAT DISASTERS. 

lions of dollars. Other loss of life and great damage by 
freshets and winds occurred elsewhere in Pennsylvania. 
A large number of steamers, ships and coasting vessels 
were dismantled, wrecked or sunk along the New Jersey, 
Virginia and North Carolina coasts, entailing loss of life 
and enormous pecuniary damage. The wind reached 
seventy-two miles per hour at Philadelphia, and eighty- 
eight along the coast." Another cyclone the next year 
ruined one hundred large vessels and two hundred yachts 
and smacks. Another, in 1881, destroyed four hundred 
persons along the Carolina coasts, and damaged property 
to the extent of $1,600,000. 

But these are exceeded by the great Nova Scotia cyclone 
of 1873. The property damage alone is estimated at nearly 
$5,000,000. The Signal Service report says that " one 
thousand and thirty-two ships, of which four hundred and 
thirty-five were small fishing schooners, are known to 
have been destroyed during the 24th and 25th of August,, 
in the neighborhood of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the 
Atlantic shores of Nova Scotia, Cape Breton and New 
Foundland. On the other hand, over one hundred and 
ninety vessels were destroyed by this hurricane in its pas- 
sage over the ocean before it reached Nova Scotia, making 
a grand total of at least one thousand two hundred and 
twenty-three vessels destroyed within a few days by its 
power. Two hundred and twenty-three lives are definitely 
reported to be lost, and the moderate estimate of the numer- 
ous cases in which whole crews have been lost swells this 
number to nearly five hundred ; and if to this is added 
the loss of life on land, and the loss in the earlier history 
of the cyclone, the grand total amounts to at least six 
hundred lives." 

Had the famed Shah Jehan ever visited the AY est 
Indies, it is probable that he might have pronounced 



TROPICAL CYCLONES. 14$ 

many of its lovely islets fit rivals for that beautiful crea- 
tion of his fancy, which bore above the gateway : 

"If there be Paradise upon the earth, 
This it is, this it is, this it is." 

Among the loveliest groups are the beautiful Virgin 
Isles, and loveliest of these is the famed island of St. 
Thomas. A lofty mountain girdles the island, leaving 
an opening between two hills into a wide oval harbor, 
while the pretty little town lies around the inner side of 
the port, sloping up the mountain behind, the queen of a 
vast natural amphitheater. Such a fine harbor has ren- 
dered St. Thomas almost the mistress of West Indian com- 
merce ; and one would not suspect, in looking at the sunny 
slopes and green-clad ranges around the azure harbor, that 
in this region is the birthplace of the Storm King. Yet, 
not a spot on earth has been more frequently visited by 
great cyclones. 

One of the most notable of its visitations during this 
century occurred August 2, 1837. The barometer fell 
rapidly during the forenoon, and by noon the storm began. 
In a short time it increased to a tremendous gale. At 
about three o'clock, the wind suddenly ceased. In a few 
moments it blew from the other direction, roaring and 
rolling black clouds before it, raising up immense sea- 
waves, covering the island with intense gloom. Six hours 
it blew, ever increasing. Tiles and slates whizzed through 
the air, to be shattered on the rocks or driven into timbers : 
great trees were whirled about, often dashing away houses 
that seemed about to weather the storm, while the terrible 
roar of the wind was such that even the crash of the thun- 
der could hardly be distinguished. One authority tells us 
that the great guns at the fort were blown through the air 
and tossed about the beach like chaff"! This must be taken 
with allowance. It is more probable that the great guns. 



144 GREAT DISASTERS. 

on the beach were washed up from the wrecks of some old 
pirate vessels or ships of war. 

About 10 p. m. there was a slight cessation of the storm, 
and the people were congratulating themselves that the 
worst was over, when there came a violent earthquake, 
which laid in ruins almost everything that was left. The 
wreck took fire in two or three places : at once the hurricane 
began with renewed vigor : and ere the wretched people 
had fully comprehended the magnitude of the calamity, the 
whole ruined town was a sea of flame. Buffeted by the 
wind, blinded by the smoke and the pelting spray whirled 
up from the raging sea, the people ran for the slopes of 
the hills: the light of the funeral pyre of their hopes 
and labors rendering the gloom more horrible, and seem- 
ing to rival the gleams of Tartarus. 

Day broke at last. The storm was gone. The earth- 
quake staggered the miserable folk no longer. The warm 
and brilliant sun of the West Indies smiled upon the scene. 
"The whole country round was strewn with large trees, 
uprooted or snapped off, and all plantations were destroyed. 
In the town the fire was dying out, and it was only here 
and there that the ruins were still smoking. The hurricane 
had swept away nearly all the wooden houses ; those which 
had been lightly placed upon beams, just above the soil, 
being carried off as they stood, while the larger ones, 
which had resisted the hurricane, were overturned in an 
instant by the earthquake. The whole town was strewn 
with wrecks that told of the violence of the catastrophe. 
The port, so gay and animated the day before, was dreary 
and deserted, a few masts here and there emerging from 
the water: while all along the shore, and even upon the 
slope of the hills, were scattered wreckage and corpses of 
sailors." 

While we have noticed only the destruction wrought at 



XEOPICAL CYCLO^£S 9 



145 




10 



CYCLONIC, FIRE AND EARTHQUAKE AT. ST. THOMAS. 



146 GREAT DISASTERS. 

St. Thomas, this storm was general throughout the Antil- 
les. In the Bahamas, it was less violent, they lying on 
the outskirts of the storm. Millions of dollars worth of 
property — merchandise, vegetation, houses, and vessels — 
were destroyed, and thousands of lives lost. 

Thirty years later, St. Thomas again suffered from the 
combined forces of storm and earthquake ; and the damage 
was greater, because the earthquake, with its sea- wave, 
came a few days after the storm, as the work of restoration 
was well under way, and so involved a second prostration 
of the resources of the people. Moreover, the town had 
grown considerably in thirty years, and there was much 
more valuable property to damage. Fifteen large steam- 
ers and many smaller vessels were driven on the shore by 
the storm : while the sea-wave, a few days later, found the 
port again filled with vessels of different nations. It 
overleaped the sentinel hills at the entrance of the bay, 
and swept with tremendous force upon the city, drowning 
with its terrible roar, the despairing cry of the sailors ;; 
then suddenly retired with the wreck of the city to its 
dark abyss. The batteries of heavy guns at the entrance 
of the harbor were swept away. A few injured vessels 
wallowed on the waves, but most had been swallowed up- 
and left no trace behind. 

While there is always deep sympathy for those who* 
suffer such calamities, yet it must remain of the type be- 
stowed upon sufferers in Arctic expeditions. The character 
of the climate is well known, and the whole matter resolves 
itself into a question of the risk one is willing to run- 
There is no blind chance in control of these movements. 
The cyclone frequents only certain regions, and its habit 
and power is understood. While we pity the sufferers, 
we can not assert that the scourge is mysterious or unac- 
countable, any more than we find mystery in the fact of 
eternal snow in the Polar world. 



TROPICAL CYCLONES. 



147 




DROWNING, WITH ITS TERRIBLE ROAR, THE DESPATRIXG CRY OF THE SAILORS. 



148 GREAT DISASTERS. 

But there have been storms in the West Indies far more 
destructive than either of these, or both together. One of 
the most noted of the century is the famous Barbadoes 
storm of 1831, which an eye-witness thus describes: 

" On the morning of the 10th of August, the sun arose 
without a cloud ; at 10 a. m. a breeze that had been blow- 
ing, died away ; towards 2 p. m. the heat became oppres- 
sive ; at 5 p. M. thick clouds appeared in the north, rain 
fell, and was succeeded by a sudden stillness and a dismal 
blackness all around except towards the zenith, where 
there was an obscure circle of imperfect light. Till 10:30 
p. m., however, there was no sign of change ; then light- 
ning appeared in the north, and very unusual fluctuations 
of the thermometer were observed. All this time the 
storm was only approaching. 

"After midnight the continued flashing of the lightning 
was awfully grand, and a gale blew fiercely from the north 
and northeast, but at 1 a. m., on the 11th of August, the 
tempestuous rage of the wind increased as the storm sud- 
denly shifted and burst from the northwest and immediate 
points. The upper regions were illuminated by incessant 
lightning, but the quivering sheet of blaze was surpassed 
in brilliancy by the darts of electric fire which exploded 
in every direction. At a little after 2 a. m. the astound- 
ing roar of the hurricane can not be described by language. 

" About three o'clock the wind abated and the lightning 
ceased for a few moments at a time, when the blackness in 
which the town was enveloped was inexpressibly awful. 
Fiery meteors were presently seen falling from the heavens; 
one in particular of a globular form and a deep-red hue, was 
observed by the writer to descend perpendicularly from a 
vast height. On approaching the earth it assumed a daz- 
zling whiteness and an elongated form, and on reaching 
the ground splashed around in the same manner as melted 



TROPICAL CYCLONES. 149 

metal would have done, and was instantly extinct." (It is 
evident that the coincidence on this occasion with the day 
on which the earth is known to pass through the August 
belt of meteors, rendered the effect of this great storm at 
Barbadoes more striking. It is not safe to assert that 
there was any relation between the phenomena.) " A few 
minutes after, the deafening noise of the wind sank to a 
solemn murmur, or rather a distant roar ; and the light- 
ning which from midnight had flashed and darted forkedly 
with but few momentary intermissions, now for nearly 
half a minute played frightfully between the clouds and 
the earth with novel and surprising action. The vast 
body of vapor appeared to touch the houses, and issued 
downward flaming blazes, which were nimbly returned 
from the earth upward. 

" The moment after this singular alteration of lightning 
the hurricane again burst forth from the western points 
with violence prodigious beyond description, hurling before 
it thousands of missiles, the fragments of every unshel- 
tered structure of human art. The strongest houses were 
caused to vibrate from their foundations, and the surface 
of the very earth trembled as the destroyer raged over it. 
No thunder was at any time distinctly heard. The horri- 
ble roar and yelling of the wind ; the noise of the ocean, 
whose frightful waves threatened the town with the destruc- 
tion of all that the other elements might spare ; the clatter- 
ing of tiles, the falling of floors, and walls, and the 
combination of a thousand other sounds, formed a hideous 
and appalling din. 

" About 5 a. m. the storm abated; at six o'clock the wind 
was at south, at seven o'clock, southeast, at eight o'clock, 
east-southeast ; and at nine o'clock, the weather was clear. 

" The view from the summit of the cathedral tower, a 
few hours later, was frightfully grand. The whole face of 



150 GREAT DISASTERS. 

the country was laid waste; no sign of vegetation was 
apparent, except here and there small patches of sickly 
green. The surface of the ground appeared as if fire had 
run through the laud, scorching and burning up the pro- 
ductions of the earth. The few remaining trees, stripped of 
their boughs and foliage, wore a cold and wintry aspect; and 
the numerous seats in the environs of Bridgetown, formerly 
concealed among thick groves, were now exposed and in 
ruins." 

One peculiarity noticeable, was that in some places 
trees, timbers, and many other objects, presented a scorched 
appearance, as though subjected to intense heat. The 
reason of this is not clear, as unusual heat was not per- 
ceptible after the beginning of the storm by any one. It 
may be that this was produced by unusual quantities of 
electricity escaping through imperfect conductors, : for we 
learn, from other phenomena, that during this storm there 
was an unusual state of electrical tension in the atmos- 
phere. Sparks occasionally leaped from the heads of 
persons out of doors. Vast numbers of trees that were 
not blown down, speedily died : and it has been suggested 
that an excess of electricity killed them. 

The total loss in this storm is not definitely known. 
Some further idea of its fearful violence may be gathered 
from the fact that at the north end of Barbadoes, the 
waves broke over a cliff seventy feet high, and the salt- 
water spray was carried inland in such quantities as to kill 
all the fresh-water fish in ponds far in the interior. As 
for the tremendous roar of the wind, the commanding 
officer of the thirty-sixth regiment sought protection by 
getting under the arch of a lower window outside his house. 
He did not hear the roof and upper story of the house fall, 
and only found it out by the dust caused by the fall. 

Far more destructive was the great hurricane of 1780. 



TROPfCAL CYCLONES. 



151 




152 (iREAT DISASTERS. 

The French and English were at war. Admiral George 
Rodney was in the West Indies with an English fleet in 
several divisions. The French had sent a convoy of five 
thousand troops to Martinique. The storm was of immense 
width, extending from Trinidad, on the extreme southwest, 
to Antigua. The evening of October 9th was red and low- 
ering. By ten o'clock next morning, the wind was high, 
and by one o'clock, vessels in the harbors were dragging 
their anchors. The water was driven on shore with such 
force at Barbadoes, that it was four feet deep in the Gov- 
ernment House. The family took refuge under the cannon, 
only to find that they were moved about by the wind. By 
morning not a building in town was standing ; every tree 
was either blown away, or stripped of branches and leaves. 

The sunny islands were suddenly become as bleak and 
bare as a Siberian steppe. 

As to the loss, ten thousand perished at Martinique ; six 
thousand at Santa Lucia ; four thousand five hundred at 
St. Eustatia; three thousand five hundred at Barbadoes. 
Scores of smaller islands were devastated, but the loss 
in detail is not known. Of the British fleet, the greater 
part was destroyed ; only one vessel out of nineteen at St. 
Eustatia survived. A score of other ships of war and 
numerous transports were sunk. Of the French convoy, 
with five thousand troops, the governor wrote laconically 
that it "had disaj)peared." Several English vessels at 
Barbadoes were carried far in shore and converted into 
dwellings. Doubtless, fifty thousand would hardly be too 
great an estimate of the total loss of life in this storm. In a 
similar one in 1813, the hurricane drove back the Gulf 
Stream, piling up the water thirty feet deep in the Gulf of 
Mexico. The ship Ledbury Snow, endeavored to ride out 
the storm, and when it was over, found herself high and dry. 
She had let go her anchor among the tree-tops of Elliot's 



TROPICAL CYCLONES. 153 

Key. The Barbadoes region suffered another severe gale 
in 1782, when the prizes captured by Admiral Rodney 
were sunk, a number of merchant vessels and two 
English war-ships foundered, and three thousand lives 
were lost at sea alone. 

The temperate zone has its occasional hurricanes, though 
they are by no means as powerful or as frequent as those of 
the tropics. It is stated that in the year 944, one thousand 
five hundred houses were destroyed by a tempest in Lon- 
don. In the year 1090, it is recorded that a violent storm 
overturned six hundred and six houses in London alone. 

Terrible as is the destruction of the cyclone in the 
western world, its fury here can not give a fair idea of the 
awful havoc it makes in Oriental regions. All through 
the Malay archipelago, along the coasts of China, Japan, 
the Phillipines, Hindostan, and Farther India, the ravages 
of the Storm King have been appalling, far exceeding 
even the terrible hurricanes of the West Indies. 

Hindostan affords peculiar facilities for distinctiveness 
of cyclones. Both its great rivers flow, for the latter part 
of their course, through low alluvial plains, and their 
deltas extend into the ocean directly toward the region of 
monsoons ; so that a hurricane may send a great tidal 
wave up the river : while the low rich plains for miles 
around are but few feet above tide-water, and teem with a 
population atttacted by the amazing fertility. So a sudden 
great storm may totally submerge, without any warning, 
hundreds of square miles of these fertile tracts, with all 
their inhabitants. Even when the sea-wave is not added 
to the horrors of the storm, the losses are fearful. A cy- 
clone at Calcutta in 1867, destroyed thirty thousand houses, 
wrecked or sunk six hundred ships and smaller vessels in 
the river, and killed ten thousand persons in the city 
alone. When to this is added the havoc committed by 



154 GREAT DISASTERS. 

the storm — one hundred miles wide — in the rural districts, 
as it traveled on toward the foot-hills, it is clear that every 
reader may be devoutly thankful that such terrible visit- 
ants are altogether unknown in our land. 

Terrible as this storm was, there was a greater one on 
the 5th of October, 1864. About one hundred ships were 
lost ; and over sixty thousand persons perished ; forty- 
three thousand in Calcutta alone. It was accompanied by 
a "bore" on the Hooghly, the water rising thirty feet, 
which is ten feet higher than the highest spring tides; 
whole towns were nearly destroyed. It indicated its ap- 
proach for several days, and Capt. Watson, of the Clarence, 
seeing the barometer falling, knew a cyclone was approach- 
ing, and saved his ship by steering out of its range. 

Compare this with the storms of our own land, that 
thrill the country with horror if but one hundred people 
are killed, and remember that the cyclone of India de- 
stroyed six hundred lives where one was destroyed in this 
region. Compare with the most terrible storms recorded 
in the West Indies, and the latter must yield. 

Coringa, on the Coromandel coast, has been several 
times desolated by these terrible storm waves. In De- 
cember, 1789, three immense rollers came ashore during 
a single storm ; the town was destroyed ; the neighboring 
country inundated. Ships were torn from their anchorage 
and thrown high on the land: twenty thousand people 
were lost; and the heaps of sand and mud rendered 
search for bodies and property useless. 

In May, 1833, the region at the mouth of the Hooghly 
was inundated by a cyclone. Three hundred villages and 
fifty thousand people were destroyed. In June, 1822, 
Burisal and Backergunge, at the mouth of the Ganges, 
were overwhelmed, and fifty thousand persons drowned. 

But Hindostan has far greater horrors to report. A 



TROPICAL CYCLONES. 155 

terrible flood in 1887 was driven by the cyclone over the 
Ganges delta. The victims numbered many thousands : 
exact figures not at hand. But in 1876, a cyclone swept 
the Backergunge district, and rolled in a storm wave over 
the eastern edge of the fertile delta, covering it with from 
ten to fifty feet of water. When the storm had subsided, 
it was found that more than one hundred thousand people 
had perished! 

Finally, a great cyclone in 1737, October 11-12, swept 
the Ganges delta with a wave thirty feet deep on the land. 
Three hundred thousand people perished in this storm! 
The mind can not grasp the appalling magnitude of such 
a disaster. 

These cases are the most destructive cyclones on record, 
and in each case the destruction is due largely to the 
character of the region traversed, though the winds of 
Bengal are not surpassed in violence by those of any 
country in the world. Were the harbor an open seaport, 
instead of a large river, no ship could live through such a 
storm. 

Other regions in the east suffer much from tempests. 
The whole Malay archipelago, with the Moluccas and 
Philippines, are visited quite as frequently as the coasts of 
Hindostan. A cyclone that swept the Philippine Islands, 
November 6, 1885, destroyed ten thousand people, and 
millions of dollars worth of property. 

The same character of storms is frequently met with in 
the Japan and China seas, where it is known as the 
" typhoon," our Anglicised spelling of the Chinese title, 
" tei-fun." With one example of the power of this storm, 
this chapter must close. In the narrative of Commander 
Hall, of the British Navy, is found this description of a 
typhoon that occurred at Hong Kong, July 21-22, 1841 : 

" For days previously large black clouds appeared to 



156 



GREAT DISASTERS 




COAST OF INDIA STIBMEROKT) BY v. SWRM. 



TROPICAL CYCLONES. 157 

settle on the hills on either side ; the atmosphere was ex- 
tremely sultry and oppressive, and the most vivid light- 
ning shot incessantly along the dense threatening clouds, 
and looked more brilliant, because the phenomena were 
most remarkable at night; while during the day, the 
threatening appearances were moderated considerably, and 
sometimes almost entirely disappeared. The vibrations of 
the mercury in the barometer were constant and rapid, 
and though it occasionally rose, still the improvement was 
only temporary ; a storm was therefore confidently pre- 
dicted. Between seven and eight o'clock in the morning, 
the wind was blowing very hard from the northward, or 
directly upon the shores of Hong Kong, and continued to 
increase in heavy squalls hour after hour. Ships were 
beginning to drive, and the work of destruction had com- 
menced on every side ; the Chinese junks and boats were 
blown about in all directions, and one of them was seen to 
founder with all hands on board. The fine basin of Hong 
Hong was gradually covered with scattered wrecks of the 
war of elements ; planks, spars, broken boats, and human 
beings clinging hopelessly for succor to every treacherous 
log, were tossed about on every side ; the wind howled and 
tore everything away before it, literally sweeping the face 
of the waters. From half-past ivn to half- past two the 
hurricane was at its highest, the barometer at this time 
having descended to 28.50. The air was filled with spray 
and salt, so that it was impossible to see anything that 
was not close at hand ; the wind roared and howled fear- 
fully, so that it was impossible to hear a word that was 
said. Ships were now drifting foul of each other in all 
directions, masts were being cut away, and from the 
strength of the wind forcing the sea high upon the shore, 
several ships were driven high and dry. The Chinese 
were all distracted, imploring their gods in vain for help ; 



158 GREAT DISASTERS. 

such an awful scene of destruction and ruin is rarely wit- 
nessed, and almost every one was so busy in thinking of 
his own safety, as to be unable to render assistance to 
any one else. Hundreds of Chinese were drowned, and 
occasionally a whole family, children and all, floated past 
the ships, clinging in apparent apathy (perhaps under the 
influence of opium) to the last remnants of their shattered 
boats, which soon tumbled to pieces and left them to their 
fate. On the 26th another typhoon occurred, but not so 
severe as the first." 

The storm at sea presents a class of peculiar dangers 
and a variety of thrilling experiences, such as the lands- 
man never knows. The stories of great shipwrecks and 
other purely naval disasters form some of the most inter- 
esting narratives in history : and doubtless the reader will 
be pleased to notice in detail the perils of the deep, and to 
learn of the precautions taken and the means in common 
use for averting, as far as possible, the disastrous results of 
the tempest. Certainly, the brave tars who peril their 
lives on the ocean to bring us the luxuries of a foreign 
land deserve especial attention, and no apology need be 
given for devoting a portion of this volume to the story of 
their perils and daring. 



CHAPTER IX. 

PERILS OF THE SEA. 

"Daughter, the night was made for sleep; 
Why dost thou moan, why dost thou weep? 
Wherefore thy mournful vigil keep? 

Daughter, daughter, my daughter! 

Mother, to me the night wind cries. 
Cold on the sands thy lover lies, 
With none to close his glazed eyes ; 

Nello, Nello, my Nello ! 

nrV HE Storm at Sea ! From the clays of David to the 
-■- present, the poet and the novelist have taxed their 
energies to portray the perils of those who go down into 
the deep in ships. The ravages of the hurricane on shore 
are confined largely to those portions of the world un- 
known to the ancients ; but the treacherous deep has been 
sung in every age. We may hardly choose which of the 
myriad wrecks to describe. St. Paul's perilous voyage to 
Rome is familiar wherever the gospel is preached ; Jonah 
has furnished a comparison for the unlucky for centuries , 
Virgil has sung of the perils of exiled iEneas in his search 
for a foreign home. 

The sea has dangers peculiarly its own, and likewise 
charms possessed by nothing else in nature. Every one 
may have heard of the little earnest woman who at her 
first sight of the ocean sighed : "Ah — at last here is some- 
thing there is enough of!" The sailor knows the ocean's 
every mood, and may sing with Barry Cornwall : 

159 



160 



GREAT DISASTERS. 




HE SINKS INTO THY DEPTHS, WITH BUBBLING GROAN, 
WITHOUT A GRAVE, UNKNELLED, UNCOFFINED, AND UNKNOWN. 



PERILS OF THE SEA. 161 

" I love, oh, how I love to ride, 
On the fierce, foaming, bursting 
When every mad wave drowns the moon, 
Or whistles aloft his tempest tune, 
And tells how goeth the world below, 
And why the sou' west blasts do blow! " 

Or if his mind be better adapted for homelier ditties, he 
may hum : 

"The wind it blew a hurricane, the sea was mountains rollin', 
When Barney Buntlin' turned his quid, and said to Billy Bowlin': 
'A strong sou'wester's blowin', Billy ; don't you hear it roar now? 
How I pity all unhappy folks as lives upon the shore now! ' " 

Or if becalmed, and forced for days to lie beneath a 
scorching tropical sun, 

"As idly as a painted ship 
Upon a painted ocean," 

the inevitable dreariness of the wide waste of scarcely 
heaving water will oppress the mind till the sailor may 
murmur : 

"So lonely 'twas that God himself 
Scarce seemed there to be." 

It is beyond dispute that the sea has been one of the 
most important factors in civilizations ancient and modern. 
Greece was no longer supreme in power when her naval 
supremacy was gone ; Rome was not mistress of the world 
till she became mistress of the Mediterranean. Not a 
single great system of civilization has originated in dis- 
tricts far inland. The great centers — Greece, Home, Asia 
Minor, Egypt, Spain, England — all that have wielded 
unusual power — are sea-coasts, peninsulas or islands. The 
Jew became prominent as a trader from the day Jewish 
vessels sailed from Tarshish. To some extent, these facts 
must be considered as results of position only, however 
powerful the tendencies or traits of any particular stock. 

It is not merely as a highway for commerce and ready 
intercommunication that the seas have enriched mankind. 
u 



162 GREAT DISASTERS. 

The submarine world presents views as strange and weirdly- 
beautiful as the ancient myths of nymphs and naiads. 

M Deep in the wave lies a coral grove. 
Where the purple mullet and goldfish rove ; 
Where the seaflower spreads its leaves of blue, 
That never were wet with falling dew ; 
But in bright and changeful beauty, shine 
Far down in the green and glassy brine.'' 

And thousands of the human race depend entirely upon 
the products of the sea for a livelihood. The fish taken as 
food would bean enormous item in any year: but the 
billows that surge over the deep conceal far more treasure 
than these. 

'• Full many a gem of purest ray serene, 
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear." 

All our pearls, nearly all our amber, sponges, and as 
beautiful and delicate as spun glass, corals of infinite 
number and variety — all these, and more, we must obtain 
from the depths of the sea. Yet, while eagerness for gain 
leads men to brave countless perils to obtain these treas- 
ures, thousands of sad hearts will deem them dearly 
bought, and recall the more precious treasures of the deep. 

•'Yet more! the billows and the depths have more! 

High hearts and brave are gathered to thy breast! 
They hear not now the booming water? roar; 

The battle thunders will not break their rest. 
Keep thy red gold and gems, thou stormy grave ! 

Give back the true and brave ! 

M Give back the lost and lovely] those for whom 
The place was kept at board and hearth so long, 

The prayer went up through midnight's breathless gloom* 
And the vain yearning woke "midst festive song! 

Hold fast thy buried isles, thy towers or throne — 
But all is not thine own. 

*' To thee the love of woman hath gone down ; 

Dark flow the tides o'er manhood's noble head, 
Or youth's bright locks, and beauty s flowery crown ; 

Yet must thou hear a voice — Restore the dead ! 
Earth shall reclaim her precious things from thee ! 

Restore the dead, thou sea! ' 



PERTLS OF THE SEA. 



163 



Like the atmosphere, the ocean has its great constant 
currents, which play an important part in the economy of 




nature. These flow steadily on, one beneath another, and 
are little affected by atmospheric disturbances. The pres- 
ence of submarine currents is often shown by icebergs 



164 GREAT DISASTERS. 

moving steadily onward against a surface current and mod- 
erate wind. But there is nothing in the sea, so far as 
known, that corresponds to the variable winds or local 
currents of the atmosphere : for as water is so much 
heavier than air, its equilibrium is not so easily disturbed by 
unusual heating : and moreover, it does not expand under 
the influence of heat to an extent in the least approaching 
the expansion of the air. Hence, its currents are steady 
and slow-moving, and, however much they affect climate 
and winds by the heating or cooling of the air above them, 
they offer no obstacle worthy of note to the sailor. The 
latter must then fear only the power of the storm : and 
were submarine vessels readily constructed and navigated, 
the storm would lose its terrors : for 

" When the wrathful spirit of storms, 
Has made the top of the wave his own, 
And when the ship from his fury flies, 
When the myriad voices of ocean roar, 
When the wind-god frowns in the murky skies, 
And demons are waiting the wreck on shore, 
Then far below in the peaceful sea, 
The purple mullet and goldfish rove, 
Where the waters murmur tranquilly, 
Through the bending twigs of the coral grove." 

It should be said, however, that the sea and storm are 
not responsible for all the disasters at sea. For years the 
greatest losses of life and property were due to the greed 
of conscienceless owners, who sent rotten tubs to sea, fear- 
fully overloaded and heavily insured, certain to make a 
good profit whether they perished or no. As for the 
sailors, they were not worth considering : there were 
plenty to be obtained. Human life is the cheapest com- 
modity in any market. By a liberal spending of this 
currency men become Alexanders or Caesars, or Sullas, or 
Marii : henceforth they are " Great." 

These abuses were especially prevalent in England, the 



PERILS OF THE SEA. 165 

greatest of maritime powers ; nor were they corrected till 
Mr. Samuel Plimsoll, in 1870, began a series of earnest 
efforts to have a systematic inspection organized. He 
made a startling arraignment of the atrocious methods of 
the land-sharks. He wrote, in 1873, "No means are 
neglected by Parliament to provide for the safety of life 
ashore ; and yet, as I said before, you may build a ship in 
any way you please, you may use timber utterly unfit, you 
may use it in quantity utterly inadequate, but no one has 
any authority to interfere with you. 

"You may even buy an old ship two hundred and fifty 
tons burden by auction for £50, sold to be broken up, 
because extremely old and rotten ; she had a narrow escape 
on her last voyage, and had suffered so severely that she 
was quite unfit to go to sea again without more being spent 
in repairs upon her than she would be worth when done. 
Instead of breaking up this old ship, bought for 4s. per 
ton ( the cost of a new ship being from £10 to £14 per 
ton ) , as was expected, you may give her a coat of paint — 
she is too rotten for caulking — and to the dismay of her 
late owners, you may prepare to send her to sea. You 
may be remonstrated with, in the strongest terms, against 
doing so, even to being told that if you persist, and the 
men are lost, you deserve to be tried for manslaughter. 

" You may engage men in another port, and they, hav- 
ing signed articles without seeing the ship, you may send 
them to the port where the ship lies in the custody of a 
mariner. You may then ( after re-christening the ship, 
which ought not to be allowed), if you have managed to 
insure her heavily, load her until the main deck is within 
two feet of the water amidships, and send her to sea. 
Nobody can prevent you. Nay, more, if the men become 
riotous, you may arrest them without a magistrate's war- 
rant, and take them to prison, and the magistrates, who 



166 GREAT DISASTERS. 

have no choice( they have not to make, but only to admin- 
ister the law), will commit them to prison for twelve weeks 
with hard labor; or better still for you, you may send 
a policeman on board to overawe the mutineers, and 
induce them to do their duty ! And then, if the ship 
is lost with all hands, you will gain a large sum of money 
and you will be asked no questions, as no inquiry will 
ever be held over those unfortunate men, unless ( which 
has only happened once, I think ) , some member of the 
House asks for inquiry. 

"The river policeman who in one case threatened a 
refractory crew with imprisonment, and urged them to do 
their duty ( ! ) told me afterwards ( when they were all 
drowned ) that he and his colleagues at the river-side sta- 
tion had spoken to each other about the ship being dread- 
fully overloaded as she passed their station on the river, 
before he went on board to urge duty ( ! ) and that he 
then, when he saw me, ' rued badly that he had not locked 
'em up without talk, as then they wouldn't have been 
drowned.' " 

He also found that some ship-builders put together mere 
floating coffins, using " devils," or dummy bolts, or bolt- 
heads without any shaft, to present the appearance of a 
staunchly built vessel. The old shell would founder in the 
first strong breeze. Hundreds of examples came in his way 
of entire crews lost in these hulks. What such losses 
meant to the poor dependent families at home we may 
imagine, but may not readily portray. 

Another prolific source of disaster was the neglect to 
supply captains with the proper charts. There are nota- 
ble instances of great vessels so lost. One ship and cargo, 
value $350,000, was lost near Boulogne, because the cap- 
tain's chart had not the lights properly marked on it 

The great steamer Deutxchland, having a ;arge number 



PERILS OF THE SEA. 



167 




168 GREAT DISASTERS. 

of German emigrants on board, ran on an unmarked shoal 
near the mouth of the Thames, December 30, 1875, and 
was lost. The vessel was fourteen hours on the shoal in 
in the winter storm, ere her signals of distress were per- 
ceived. Fifty-seven of her passengers had been lost in 
the heavy sea ere help reached her. 

Ship after ship has left her port, never to be heard of 
again, whose crews might have still been in peace and 
comfort with their families, had the owners had the least 
trace of humanity, or regard for simple justice. A single 
example will illustrate. 

In a hovel, Plimsoll found a young wife, scrubbing for 
a living, trying to support herself and three children. 
"She had a loving husband but very lately, but the owner 

of the ship on which he served, the S n, was a very 

needy man, who insured her for <£3,000 more than she 
had cost him. So if she sank he would gain all this. 
Well, one voyage she was loaded under the owner's per- 
sonal superintendence ; she was loaded so deeply that the 
dockmaster pointed her out to a friend as she left the dock, 
and said emphatically, ' That ship will never reach her 
destination.' She never did, for she was lost with all 
hands — twenty men and boys." 

Under the owner's personal superintendence! Could 
cool calculating villany go any further? Yet this is but 
one out of many scores ! 

Yet, despite the apparent frequency of complaints from 
those who suffered most by these practices, the abuses had 
grown up so gradually that the masses of the people had 
come to accept them as almost a necessary concomitant 
of naval matters. While holding out stoutly for the dif- 
ference of a penny more or less in wages, there was no 
effort at concerted action for better treatment. Men ac- 
customed to risking their lives daily came to look upon 



PERILS OF THE SEA. 169 

the matter as of no great consequence. Only the worst 
possible vessels were very seriously objected to ; and these 
usually had little difficulty in obtaining crews of men long 
out of employment, who would accept any risk rather than 
remain a burden to their friends and families, however the 
latter might object to the proceeding. So thousands went 
to a watery grave. Official records of the period showed 
that one-half the losses at sea were the result of sending out 
rotten hulks. Yet, when reforms were suggested, the pro- 
moters were frequently told that if such things did not 
properly regulate themselves as a matter of political econ- 
omy, there was no use striving for a change. Cool weigh- 
ing of human life against gold ! 

Even in staunch ships the accommodations provided for 
the sailors were of the meanest sort. Men might wade to 
their bunks through water, or be packed in a filthy fore- 
castle like herrings ; they were fed on " salt horse " and 
moldy biscuit ; they might rot with scurvy — if the ship 
got to port with her cargo, it made little difference how 
the crew fared. 

Our own ships and the Russian and French vessels the 
investigator found far superior in treatment of the sailor : 
and the majority of English owners did well by their 
crews ; but Plimsoll's efforts induced great improvement. 
Compulsory survey and no overloading were his main 
remedies for the prevention of the terrible loss of life 
in the mercantile marine. He cites two cases of great 
firms — the first engaged in the coal carrying, and the 
second in the guano trade — who do not permit overload- 
ing, and the first, in fifteen years had not, out of a large 
fleet of steamers, lost a single vessel, although they made 
from fifty to seventy double trips per year. The second 
case deserves particular mention. About the year 1860, 
the firm of Anthony Gibbs & Co., of London, took a con- 



170 GREAT DISASTERS. 

tract from the Peruvian Government to charter and load 
ships from the Chincha Islands with guano, and as many 
as three or four hundred ships left those islands annually 
for different parts of the world. At first they were allowed 
to load and proceed to sea without inspection or surveying, 
and were permitted to load as deeply as the masters 
thought fit. What was the result? Accidents and losses 
were reported every few days, and many of their ships 
foundered at sea, some with all hands on board. When 
the head of the house at Lima, Peru, introduced proper 
surveying before loading, to discover what repairs were 
needed, etc., allowing no overloading, and not permitting 
the ships to go to sea without full inspection of her pumps 
and gear, a sudden and wonderful change took place, and 
for years after not one of these ships foundered at sea. 
-There is no sadder record than that which has been 
made of many a gallant vessel, sailing with the best pros- 
pects — "Missing," or "Never heard of." Occasionally the 
mysterious fate of some of these vessels has been revealed 
by the picking up of sealed bottles containing brief records 
of the disastrous end of the missing ships. But such cases 
are rare in comparison with the vast majority of the disas- 
ters ; for the greatest peril to a vessel in a storm is the 
vicinity of a reef or shoal. In the open sea there is com- 
parative safety, even in a considerable gale, for good sea- 
men ; but a shoal or rocky coast may be fatal to the vessel 
striking, even though the wind be but moderate. So 
nearly all disasters occur along shore; and the time is 
past in which it is possible for a vessel to be lost on an 
unknown or uninhabited coast. Hence, soon or late, the 
lot of nearly every vessel is known. Occasionally a vessel 
has been abandoned as unseaworthy or unmanageable, and 
has surprised those abandoning her by drifting around for 
months in the path of other vessels and occasionally foul- 
ing with some of them, to their serious injury. 



PERILS OF THE SEA. 



171 



The polar seas present peculiar perils to the navigator. 
Almost every one has heard of the ill-fated Franklin 




expedition, even though others may not be familiar. The 
attempts to find a northwest passage have long ceased, it 



172 GREAT DISASTERS. 

being indisputable that it is useless though found. The 
great expeditions of later years have been equipped purely 
from a scientific standpoint. No conceivable benefit to 
commerce can result therefrom. 

But the vast majority of fatalities in the polar seas have 
not been among the great exploring expeditions, any more 
than the majority of disasters in warmer climes are among 
first-class passenger steamers. The world over, it is the 
coasting vessels, the fishing smacks, the second and third- 
class freighters that swell the lists of losses at sea. And 
in the polar seas the most numerous disasters are among 
the whaling and sealing vessels, which visit the regions 
season after season. Many a vessel has been crushed 
like an egg-shell amid the enormous masses of ice. Often 
a vessel seemingly hoj)elessly imprisoned has been aban- 
doned by the crew, only to be freed by some caprice 
of the winds and picked up by some other crew. And 
again there have been instances of vessels seen resting in 
masses of ice far above the water, raised by continual tilt- 
ing and piling of ice-cakes beneath. Sometimes a vessel 
has floated about thus for a considerable period. Com- 
paratively speaking, losses of life have been small in pro- 
portion to the dangers and property losses. Where so 
many vessels are in the same region at a time, the crew of 
a crushed ship can generally reach another vessel without 
great difficulty. But years ago, when the whaling fleet 
was smaller, and steam had not been called to the seaman's 
aid, the peril of life was greater ; and many is the vessel 
that sailed away never to be heard of again. 

One of the best stories illustrating this class of dangers 
is that of the whaleship Rufus. A whaling vessel in 1774 
found an abandoned ship ; and on boarding her, found the 
crew scattered about in the postures assumed when they 
first yielded to the fatal sleep. The tale, in verse worth 



PERILS OF THE SEA 



173 




174 GREAT DISASTERS. 

remembering, but seldom or never seen, was told many- 
years ago by an unknown author. The distinctness and 
simplicity of the style render the poem worth preserving,, 
aside from the interest of the story. 

THE SHIP RUFUS. 

Sing not, my Muse, of brightening fields 

Of ether, fair displayed, 
Of whispering bowers, where Zephyr yields 

His fragrance to the glade 

But haste thee to the frozen throne, 

The starry blue domain 
Where Winter, monarch dread and lone, 

Asserts his iron reign. 

Now Europe's northern cape recedes, 

And Iceland's utmost shore ; 
The sailor turns his face and heeds 

Those viewless forms no more. 

For mountains, distant yet, but bright, 

Edging the arctic tide, 
'Neath spiry flames of dancing light. 

At masthead are descried. 

For see ! in glittering points, the coast 

Divides ; the mountain chain, 
On waves afar in silence tossed, 

Trembles athwart the main. 

Anon, the mariner looks forth, 

And scans with cheerless brow,. — 
Borne onward by the angry North, 

An arctic navy now. 

"How shall the good ship Rufus speed? 

How live % " the master cried ; — 
"God send us help in time of need T " — 
' 'Amen ! " the crew replied- 



PERILS OF THE SEA. 175 

Each ice-built crag and snowy cliff 

Chases the foaming spray ; 
And, 'mid those moving Alps, the skiff 

Must find her destined way. 

Her destined way ? — Her destined fate ! 

Now drops the needful gale ; 
The waves become a glassy plate ; 

The bark forbears to sail. 

Prisoned of God ; by mountains pent, — 

Fuel and food consumed ; — 
Ask not of me the dire event, 

Nor why they thus were doomed. 

****** 
Again, borne forth by waves and wind, 

Men spread a venturous sail, 
'Mid rocks of massy ice to find 

The scarce less massy whale. 

The optic tube now aids the eye, 

And scans the distant sea : 
A distant speck they now descry ; 

A speck — what can it be ? 

"What can it be?" inquire the men— 
"An iceberg, or a sail?" 
As yet the crew inquire in vain, 
And doubt must yet prevail. 

Yes, doubt prevails, and strengthens still, 
Though fast the object nears. 
"Sure 'tis no sail which at the will 
Of winds and billows steers ! " 

Fancy still limns out forms uncouth, 

Yet scarce herself persuades ; 
But fancy now gives place to truth 

More startling than her shades. 



176 GREAT DISASTERS. 

A dreary hull, with shattered mast, 
And sails of strangest guise, 

And cordage fluttering in the blast, 
Now meets their wondering eyes. 

The bark they hail ; — in many a groan 
The bellowing shrouds reply ; 

But bellowing shrouds respond alone ; — 
No voice returns the cry. 

Strange ! — for, as near with curious haste 
They ply, and glance within, 

Lo ! at the cabin window placed, 
A form is dimly seen. 

They mount the floating ruin now — 

Her deck is overlaid 
Man's height in crusted ice and snow, 

Which shows no human tread. 

To find the hatch beneath the drift, 
They all their efforts lend, — 

Its frozen planks at length they lift, 
And fearfully descend. 

Now pause they at the cabin door ; — 
Now enter, as they will ; — 

Its quiet inmate, as before, 
Sits unconcerned and still. 

With pen in hand, and half reclined, 
Like those in thoughtful moods ; 

To noises deaf, to visions blind, 
He cares not who intrudes. 

No ! — for a filmy mold invests 
His long untroubled brow ; — 

His eyeballs green sought not his guests, 
Nor can he turn them now. 



PERILS OF THE SEA. 



177 




12 



178 CHEAT DISASTERS. 

A crumbling page before him lay, 
Which told the unspoken woe ; — 
"Our cabin fire went out to-day — 
Food spent live days ago ; — 

"Locked in the ice three weeks. — our crew 
All dead. — all hope is o'er ; — 
Ship Rufus — 1702 — 

One hour, and I'm no more ! " 

Now horror on the souls sunk down — 
On all who viewed the scene ; 

Twelve arctic winters then had flown, 
Since this a corpse had been ! 

Twelve years on polar surges tossed, 
By northern blasts conveyed — 

Destroyed — preserved, by iron frost, 
Her crew were statues made. 

Perchance this fate-directed prow 
Had crossed 'neath cloudless skies 

The pole, which jealous Nature now 
Shuts out from human eyes. 

Perchance the dreamed of Northern Way 
This guileless keel had plowed, 

While billows with the helm did play, 
And wild winds trimmed the shroud. 

Say when, Stern Spirits of the North, 
They found their watery grave ? 

Or do ye still in awful mirth, 
Toss them from wave to wave? 



CHAPTER X. 

LIFE-SAVING MEASURES. 

" ' O father, I hear the church-bells ring, 
O say, what may it be ? ' 
' Tis a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast,' 
And he steered for the open sea. 

' O father, I hear the sound of guns, 

O say, what may it be ? ' 
• Some ship in distress that can not live 

In such an angry sea.' 

' O father, I see a gleaming light, 
O say, what may it be ? ' 
But the father answered not a word, 
For a frozen corpse was he. 

******* 
At daybreak, on the bleak sea beach, 
A fisherman stood aghast, 
To see the form of a maiden fair, 
Lashed close to a drifting mast. 

The salt sea was frozen on her breast, 

The salt tears in her eyes. 

And he saw her hair, like the brown seaweed, 

On the billows fall and rise." 

ONE of the most destructive storms on record, and cer- 
tainly the most terrible ever known on the whole 
English coast is the great storm of 1703. It is the only 
storm which has ever been made the subject of a Parliamen- 
tary memorial. It raged for a week over nearly the whole 
of England. Scores of vessels were driven on shore and 
perished. At Bristol, the in-driven sea filled the mer- 
chants' cellars, destroying sugar, tobacco, and other pro- 
duce, to the value of hundreds of thousands of dollars. 
Eighty people were drowned in the river and adjacent 

179 



180 



GREAT DISASTERS. 



marshes', fifteen thousand sheep were drowned by the 
overflow or backing up of the Severn. At London, the 




river was filled with vessels, the crews of which were 
nearly all on shore. The storm tore them from their 



LIFE-SAVING MEASURES. 181 

moorings, and drove them into a bight on the opposite side 
of the stream. It was a strange sight they presented after 
the storm. Defoe says that "there lay, by the best account 
he could take, few less than seven hundred sail of ships, 
some very great ones, between Shadwell and Limehouse 
inclusive ; the posture is not to be imagined but by them 
that saw it ; some vessels lay heeling off with the bow of 
another ship over her waist, and the stern of another upon 
her forecastle; the boltsprits of some drove into the cabin 
windows of others ; some lay with their sterns tossed up 
so high that the tide flowed into their forecastles before 
they could come to rights; some lay so leaning upon others 
that the undermost vessels would sink before the other 
could float; the number of masts, boltsprits and yards 
split and broke, the staving the heads and sterns and 
carved work, the tearing and destruction of rigging, and 
the squeezing of boats to pieces between the ships, is not 
to be reckoned ; but there was hardly a vessel to be seen 
that had not suffered some damage or other in one or all 
of these articles." 

In the city itself, the streets were covered with tiles, 
slates, bricks, and fallen chimneys. Common tiles rose to 
nearly six times their usual price. Numbers of people 
were killed by crumbling roofs or falling houses. In 
Gloucester, six hundred great trees were prostrated in a 
space of five acres. The Bishop of Bath and Wells, and 
his wife, were among the more noted dead. The total loss 
of life has been estimated at from eight to thirty thousand. 
The former is Defoe's, but as he only counts those of which 
he obtained direct personal information, this estimate is 
certainly too low. 

A single item of this storm will give some idea of the 
peculiar dangers once incurred by shipwrecked sailors. 
Mr. Whymper writes, " The townspeople of Deal, in par- 



182 GREAT DISASTERS. 

ticular, were blamed for their inhumanity in leaving many 
to their fate who could have been rescued. Boatmen went 
off to the sands for booty, some of whom would not listen 
to poor wretches who might have been saved. Many un- 
fortunate shipwrecked persons could be seen, by the aid of 
glasses, walking on the Goodwin Sands in despairing pos- 
tures, knowing that they would, as Defoe puts it, ' be 
washed into another world ' at the reflux of the tide. 
The mayor of Deal, Mr. Thomas Powell, asked the Custom 
House officers to take out their boats and endeavor to save 
the lives of some of these unfortunates, but they utterly 
refused. The mayor then offered, from his own pocket, 
five shillings a head for all saved, and a number of fisher- 
men and others volunteered, and succeeded in bringing 
two hundred persons on shore, who would have been lost 
in a half an hour afterwards. The Queen's agent for sick 
and wounded seamen would not furnish a penny for their 
lodging or food, and the good mayor supplied all of them 
with what they required. Several died, and he was com- 
pelled to bury all of them at his own expense ; he fur- 
nished a large number with money to pay their way to 
London. He received no thanks from the Government of 
the day, but some long time after was reimbursed the 
large sums he had expended." 

One not versed in the tales of the past might be as- 
tounded at such inhumanity ; yet the case cited is compar- 
atively a mild one. People acquainted with the history 
of pirates and buccaneers know that coasts everywhere 
were once more or less infested with land-sharks, more 
merciless than any shark of the deep, who enriched them- 
selves by the misfortunes of others : and drowning sailors 
would be disregarded in the race for plunder. Yet this is 
but a shadow of the fearful tragedies often enacted. 

Picture a richly laden vessel, homeward bound, with 



LIFE-SAVING MEASURES. 183 

scores of eager anxious hearts on board, and other soores 
in port eagerly waiting them. The captain smiles thought- 
fully, as he murmurs, " We shall be at home to-morrow! " 
The mother with child in arms repeats, as she thinks of 
the waiting husband, "We shall be home to-morrow!" 
The bronzed wanderer, returning after years of adventure, 
wonders if his boyhood's home is changed, as he thinks, 
"I shall be home to-morrow ! " 

There is but the faintest indication of storm. On shore, 
cruel, sinister faces scan the sky and the distant ship as 
the twilight settles down, and whisper together, and scowl 
as they recall past disappointments. They will take care 
that they are not disappointed again. Their grizzled old 
leader will see to that. 

Night gathers apace. The storm bursts — the ship is 
far off shore, and in safe quarters. It is time to act 
" Now, in the pitchy darkness of the night, with bowed 
head, and faltering steps battling against the storm, the 
old man leads a white horse along the edge of the cliff. 
To the tip of the horse's tail a lantern is tied, and the light 
sways with the movement of the horse, and in its move- 
ments seems not unlike the masthead light of a vessel 
rocked by the motion of the sea. A whisper has gone 
through the village of a chance of something happening 
during the night, and most of the men and many of the 
women are on the alert, lurking in the caves beneath the 
cliff, or sheltered behind jutting pieces of rock. 

"The vessel makes in steadily for the land ; the captain 
grows uneasy, and fears running into danger ; he will put 
the vessel round, and try and battle his way out to sea. 

" The look-out man reports a dim light ahead. What 
kind ? and whither away ? He can make out that it is a 
ship's light, for it is in motion. Yes, she must be a vessel 
standing on in the same course as that which they are on. 



184 



GREAT DISASTERS. 



It is all safe, then ; the captain will stand in a little longer; 
when suddenly, in the lull of the storm, a hoarse murmur 
is heard — surely the sound of the sea beating upon rocks ! 




ON A LEE SHORE. 



Yes ! look ! a white gleam upon the water ! Breakers 
ahead ! breakers ahead ! Ob, a very knell of doom ! The 
cry rings through the ship, ' Down, down with the helm- 
round her to ! ' Too late, too late ! A crash, a shudder 



LIFE-SAVING MEASURES. 185 

from stem to stern of the stout ship, the shriek of many 
voices in their agony, green seas sweeping over the vessel, 
and soon broken timbers, bales of cargo, and lifeless bodies 
scattered along the beach, while the shattered remnant of 
the hull is torn still further to pieces with each insweep of 
the mighty seas as they roll it to and fro among the rocks. 
Fearful and crafty the smile that darkened the nice of 
the willing murderer who was leading the horse with the 
false light as he heard the crash of the vessel and the 
shrieks of the drowning crew ! Fearful the smile that 
darkened the faces of the men and women waiting on the 
beach as they came out from their places, ready to struggle 
and fight among themselves for any spoil that might come 
ashore ! A homeward-bound ship from the Indies ! Great 
good fortune — rich spoil ! Bale after bale is seized upon 
by the wreckers, and dragged high upon the beach out of 
the way of the surf. But, see ! a sailor clinging to a bit 
of broken mast ! With his last conscious effort he gains 
a footing on the shore, staggers forward, and falls. Is he 
alive? Not now ! Why did that fearful old woman kneel 
upon his chest and cover his mouth with her cloak ? Dead 
men tell no tales — claim no property ! " 

No fiction of the fancy, this ! Only the last great day 
will ever reveal how many souls have perished at the hands 
of those who should have succored them. Think of a 
man and his wife reaching the shore after an exhausting^ 
struggle; the man leaving his wife in a sheltered nook 
while he goes in search of human habitations, and return- 
ing after a few moments to find his wife, a plundered, 
naked corpse ! And yet, such practices were tolerably 
common, even within the range of a century past! 

In striking contrast with the heartless wreckers are 
those known on the British coast as "hovellers." These 
put out to sea in stormy weather to ascertain if vessels in 



186 GREAT DISASTERS. 

the offing are in need of anything, or are otherwise crip- 
pled : and many a ship have they saved from wreck by 
their timely aid. 

It appears strange that, among a people so dependent 
upon the sea as the English, no regularly organized meth- 
ods of diminishing the losses by wreck existed till within 
the present century. Yet such is the fact. A hundred 
years ago, there was no boat that could safely venture in 
a heavy sea; and if, perchance, some humane people 
wished to succor a vessel in distress, few were the means 
and terrible the risks. The graphic pen of Dickens, in 
this abridged narrative, will illustrate the case. The scene 
is Yarmouth, England : 

"In the difficulty of hearing anything but wind and 
waves, and in the crowd, and the unspeakable confusion, 
and my first breathless efforts to stand against the weather, 
I was so confused that I looked out to sea for the wreck, 
and saw nothing but the foaming heads of the great waves. 
A half-dressed boatman, standing next me, pointed with 
his bare arm (a tattooed arrow on it, pointing in the same 
direction) to the left. Then, O great Heaven, I saw it, 
close in upon us ! 

"One mast was broken off short, six or eight feet from 
the deck, and lay over the side, entangled in a maze of 
sail and rigging ; and all that ruin, as the ship rolled and 
beat — which she did without a moment's pause, and with 
a violence quite inconceivable — beat the side as if it would 
stave it in. Some efforts were even then being made to cut 
this portion of the wreck away ; for, as the ship, which was 
broadside on, turned towards us in her rolling, I plainly 
descried her people at work with axes, especially one 
active figure with long curling hair, conspicuous among 
the rest. 

" But a great cry, which was audible even above the wind 



L I F K-S A V I N ( ;. M i; A SUB ES. 



is; 




1 






188 GREAT DISASTERS. 

and water, rose from the shore at this moment ; the sea, 
sweeping over the rolling wreck, made a clean breach, and 
carried men, spars, casks, planks, bulwarks — heaps of 
such toys — into the boiling surge. The second mast was 
yet standing, with the rags of a rent sail, and a wild con- 
fusion of broken cordage flapping to and fro. The ship 
had struck once, the same boatman hoarsely said in my 
ear, and then lifted in and struck again. 

"As he spoke, there was another great cry of pity from 
the beach; four men arose with the wreck out of the deep, 
clinging to the rigging of the remaining mast; uppermost, 
the active figure with the curling hair. There was a bell 
on board ; and, as the ship rolled and dashed, like a des- 
perate creature driven mad, now showing us the whole 
sweep of her deck, as she turned on her beam-ends towards 
the shore, now, nothing but her keel, as she sprung wildly 
over and turned towards the sea, the bell rang; and its 
sound, the knell of those unhappy men, was borne towards 
us on the wind. 

"Again, we lost her, and again she rose. Two men were 
gone. The agony on shore increased. Men groaned and 
clasped their hands, women shrieked and turned away 
their faces. Some ran wildly up and down along the 
beach, crying for help where no help could be. I found 
myself one of these, frantically imploring a knot of sailors 
whom I knew, not to let those two lost creatures perish 
before our eyes, when I noticed that some new sensation 
moved the people on the beach, and saw them part, and 
Ham come breaking through them to the front. 

"I ran to him, held him back with both arms and im- 
plored the men with whom I had been speaking not to 
listen to him, not to do murder, not to let him stir from 
off that sand ! Another cry arose on shore, and, looking 
to the wreck, we saw the cruel sail, with blow on blow, 



LIFE-SAVING MEASURES. 189 

beat off the lower of the two men, and fly up in triumph 
round the active figure left alone upon the mast. 

"Against such a sight, and against such determination 
as that of the calmly desperate man, I might as hopefully 
have entreated the wind. ' Mas'r Davy,' he said, cheerily 
grasping me by both hands, 'if my time is come, 'tis come. 
If 'tain't, I'll bide it. Lord above bless you, and bless all! 
Mates, make me ready ! I'm a-going off! ' 

"I don't know what I answered, or what they rejoined; 
but I saw a hurry on the beach, and men running with 
ropes from a capstan that was there, and penetrating into 
a circle of figures that hid him from me. Then I saw him 
standing alone, in a seaman's frock and trousers, a rope in 
his hand, or slung to his wrist; another round his body, 
and several of the best men, holding, at a little distance, 
to the latter, which he laid out himself, slack upon the 
shore, at his feet. 

"Ham watched the sea, standing alone, with the silence 
of suspended breath behind him, and the storm before, 
until there was a great retiring wave, when, with a back- 
ward glance at those who held the rope which was made 
fast round his body, he dashed in after it, and, in a mo- 
ment was buffeting with the water. Now, he made for 
the wreck, rising with the hills, falling with the valleys, 
lost beneath the rugged foam, borne in towards the shore, 
borne on towards the ship, striving hard and valiantly. 

"The distance was nothing, but the power of the sea and 
wind made the strife deadly. At length, he neared the 
wreck. He was so near that with one more of his vigorous 
strokes he would be clinging to it — when a high, green, 
vast hill-side of water, moving on, shoreward, from the 
beyond the ship, he seemed to leap up into it with a mighty 
bound, and the ship was gone ! 

"On running to the spot where they were hauling in, 



190 



GREAT DISASTERS. 




LIFE-SAVING MEASUEES. 191 

I saw some eddying fragments in the sea, as if a mere 
cask had been broken. Consternation was in every face. 
They drew him to my very feet — insensible — dead — beaten 
to death by the great wave ; and his generous heart was 
stilled forever." 

Such things weighed heavily upon the humanely dis- 
posed ; and when a century ago Mr. Greathead, who had a 
great heart, stood at Newcastle-on-Tyne, and saw man after 
man drop from a great wreck into a raging sea without 
the possibility of rescue, he set himself to work upon the 
problem of the life-boat. Noticing that the half of a cir- 
cular wooden bowl invariably turned concave side upward, 
when thrown in the water, it occurred to him at once that 
a boat with a curved instead of straight keel would always 
right itself. Wouldhave, at the same time was advocating 
padding the boat heavily with cork : and the first life-boat 
was constructed from these ideas. A year or two later, a 
minister in the Orkneys suggested that all boats could be 
made self-righting by fixing an empty water-tight cask in 
either end. So the idea of air-chambers developed : and 
later the curved keel was made of iron, to aid in ballasting 
the craft: so that the modern life-boat, with curved iron 
keel, cork padding, air chambers, and tubes to permit 
water to flow out, cannot be sunk, or made to float bottom 
up. The men may sometimes be washed out of it, or a 
side stove in, but the boat will always be found right side 
up. 

Strange as it may appear, though the first life-boat, with 
its crudities, saved hundreds of lives within a few years, 
the Government took no steps to institute a general system 
or life-saving service. To the average American, this 
seems striking ; but governments a century ago were 
more concerned about the success in war than about 
the welfare of the masses ; they studied destruction of life 



192 GEEAT DISASTEES. 

more than its preservation : and if perchance, some ruler 
affected peculiar concern for the welfare of " the State,'' it 
was generally the case that the definition of Louis XIV 
was applicable; "The State — that's me! " 

But Sir William Hillary and Thomas Wilson made 
earnest appeals to Parliament for the establishment of a 
national life-saving institution ; and Hillary added the 
more effective argument of many deeds of personal daring 
in the venturous work. Between 1821-1846, no fewer 
than one hundred and forty-four wrecks occurred on the 
Isle of Man, and " one hundred and seventy-two lives 
were lost; while the destruction of property was estimated 
at a quarter of a million. In 1825, when the City of 
Glasgow steamer was stranded in Douglas Bay, Sir Wil- 
liam Hillary assisted in saving the lives of sixty-two per- 
sons ; and in the same year eleven men from the brig 
Leopard, and nine from the sloop Fancy, which became a 
total wreck. In 1827-32, Sir William, accompanied by 
his son, saved many other lives; but his greatest success 
was on the 20th of November, 1830, when he saved in the 
life-boat twenty-two men, the whole of the crew of the 
mail steamer St. George, which became a total wreck on 
St. Mary's Bock. On this occasion he was washed over- 
board among the wreck, with three other persons, and was 
saved with great difficulty, having had six of his ribs frac- 
tured." 

So the British institution arose, small at first, but mighty 
in its work since. Ten years after, in 1850, it was reor- 
ganized, and improved life-boats secured. The imjiortance 
of the work may be imagined when we record that from 
1852 to 1871, the wrecks on British coasts alone averaged 
one thousand four hundred and forty-six per annum! 
When we add the work of our own life-saving service, and 
the service of life-boats in many other lands, we may real- 
ize how inestimable is the value of such an institution. 



LIFE-SAVING MEASURES. 



193 




L3 



J 94 GREAT DISASTERS. 

Among the earlier measures to prevent loss of life are 
fog-bells, fog-horns, and lighthouses, to warn the sailor of 
dangerous shoals. In earlier days, wreckers sometimes 
silenced the fog-bell. Southey has given us a ballad upon 
the poetic justice said to have been meted out to a famous 
pirate who removed the bell placed by the abbot of Arber- 
brothok upon the Inchcape Rock, off the Scottish coast. 
One year later, with a rich booty, the pirate nears home 
once more, 

"They bear no sound, the swell is strong; 
Though the wind hath fallen they drift along, 
Till the vessel strikes with a shivering shock, — 
' Oh, Christ ! it is the Inchcape Rock ! ' 

Sir Ralph the Rover tore his hair ; 
He curst himself in his despair; 
The waves rush in on every side, 
The ship is sinking beneath the tide." 

With this notice of the extent to which man may be 
responsible for disasters, the subject must be dismissed. 
Ere leaving the topic of storms, the reader shall know of 
one of the most notable naval disasters of the century, 
which will illustrate the difficulty with which even power- 
ful war ships face high winds at sea. 



CHAPTER XI. 

GREAT SAMOAN HURRICANE. 

"Roll on, thou deep and dark-blue Ocean, roll I 
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain. 
Man marks the earth with ruin : his control 
Stops with thy shores : upon the watery plain 
The wrecks are all thy deed ; nor doth remain 
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, 
When for a moment, like a drop of rain, 
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, 
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown." 

®URING the fall of 1888, no little interest centered 
in one of the little inland groups of the Pacific. 
In 1887, German officers in the Samoan group conceived 
that the king, Malietoa, was so prejudiced toward their 
interests that he should be deposed. So without much 
ceremony they laid hands upon and carried him into 
exile, placing him on an island some thousands of miles 
distant. 

There seems no reason to doubt that Germany's ultimate 
design was to formally occupy the islands. It is the old 
story of the civilized man's dealings with the savage ; of 
the man who has ten talents, obtaining the property of the 
man with one. 

Methods have changed somewhat, however, since the 
day when our pilgrim fathers kindly relieved the Red 
man of such encumbrances as he had in the way of real 
estate, and established quit-claim deeds and perfect titles 
in their flint-lock muskets. It is not now considered 
" good form," as it was in the days of olden Spanish Amer- 
ica, to declare one's self Marquis of this or Duke de that, 

195 



196 GREAT DISASTERS. 

with several thousands of Indians as slaves or tributaries, 
without consulting them. The modern method is that of 
the European guide who attaches himself to your person 
willy-nilly, in order that he rifle your pockets as the need 
of his divers imaginary services. It is a less expensive 
method, and none the less sure. So the colonizers of our 
day kindly establish a " protectorate " over Naboth's vine- 
yard. Naboth, however, fully understands the process, as 
some civilized races have found to their cost. 

The Samoans were in high dudgeon at the action of Ger- 
many : and when the foreigners coolly proceeded, without 
consulting the wishes of the natives, to select and establish 
a new king, whom they thought would be favorable to 
their own interests, open hostility resulted. 

The Samoans had no way to bring back their former 
king, Malietoa ; but they promptly deposed the creature of 
the Germans, Tamasese, and chose instead Mataafa, a rela- 
tive and personal representative of their exiled king. The 
few American residents and frequenters of the islands 
approved this, deeming the act of the Germans one of 
unjustifiable aggression. 

Civil war resulted. At the outset, Tamasese's strong 
personal following, and the fear of German interference, 
gave him a very large party. But in the half-dozen fierce 
battles that were fought he was decidedly worsted, and, 
forced to flee from the capital, Apia, he shut himself up 
in a native fortress eight miles distant. 

The Germans had in the meantime actively espoused 
his cause, and went so far as to bombard several native 
villages. Still they did not come into direct personal 
collision with the natives until December, 1888. A body 
of Germans landed a few miles from Apia, and assaulted 
Mataafa's forces. 

The island blood was up. The battle was stubbornly 



GREAT SAMOAX HURRICANE. 197 

"ontested. The Germans were utterly routed and driven 
back to their vessels with a loss of fifty killed and 
wounded. 

This is precisely the sort of pretext a "protecting" 
power desires. In great indignation at the pesky people 
who had failed to allow themselves to be thrashed, the 
Germans formally declared war, and began a series of 
high-handed seizures and aggressions. The interests of 
other nations in Samoa were endangered. There was but 
one American man-of-war in the harbor. 

As soon as the War Department learned of the state of 
affairs, reinforcements were sent out, and it seemed highly 
probable that a collision between America and Germany 
might be precipitated at any moment. Thus, there were 
collected in the harbor the American warship Trenton, 
the flag-ship of Rear- Admiral Kimberly, and one of the 
largest vessels in the navy, N. H. Farquhar, Commander : 
the Nlpsic, Commander D. W. Mullan ; and the Vandalia, 
Commander C. M. Schoonmaker. The Germans were 
represented by the warship Olga, and the cruisers Eber 
and Adler. England had sent the man-of-war Calliope. 
In addition, there were in the harbor ten or twelve schoon- 
ers and trading vessels. Such was the force assembled at 
Apia, March 15, 1889. 

The news does not travel rapidly from that portion of 
the world. During the spring a report reached America 
that the looked-for collision between the assembled forces 
had occurred, and that the Nipsic had been sunk by the 
Olga. There was much suppressed excitement; but as 
the report was not officially confirmed, this soon ceased. 

No one was prepared for the actual occurrence, or the 
magnitude of the calamity. 

The town of Apia, the Samoan capital, lies around a 
small circular bay. Across the mouth of the harbor, two 



198 GREAT DISASTERS. 

miles in width, extends a coral reef, which is visible at 
low water. A break in the reef a quarter of a mile in 
width forms the entrance to the harbor. Only a small 
portion of the latter is available for anchorage, as the east- 
ern part is quite shallow, and on the west the bay has 
a small fringing reef well out from the shore. It will be 
seen that the crowded condition of the harbor rendered it 
peculiarly perilous. The war vessels were anchored in 
the deep water, the Eber and Nipsic being nearest the 
shore. The* schooners and lighter craft were in the shoal 
water next to the fringing reef on the west side of the 
harbor. 

The town is composed of cottages, built after the native 
pattern : low, of elastic materials, and bound well together; 
so that the low houses, swaying easily with the wind, are 
not so easily blown away as structures of stifter and more 
pretentious build. The American consulate, facing the 
harbor, lies about the center of the town, with a long strip 
of sandy beach before it. 

For some weeks the weather had been gloomy and 
capricious. The time of the vernal equinox was at hand, 
and a low area storm of unusual violence might be ex- 
pected at any time. During the afternoon of March, 15, 
the wind began to increase : the war ships lowered their 
topmasts and secured their spars; one or two prepared 
storm-sails for emergencies. The anchors were all out, 
and steam was raised lest the anchors should not hold. 

The wind increased steadily, blowing from the same 
quarter continuously. Though the only recorded obser- 
vations are at this one point, its proximity to the equator, 
the steadiness of the wind and the length of time it blew 
indicate a cyclonic tempest of unusual violence. 

By 11 p. m. the wind was a strong gale: not too strong 
in the harbor for small boats, however ; for the crews of 



(h;i:at samoan jh'kkicank. 199 

nearly all the schooners, divining what was coming, put 
out their .spare anchors and went ashore, leaving the ves- 
sels to their fate. Mayhap the anchors would hold; but 
on their lives they would take no risks. 

An hour later immense rollers were coming in from the 
ocean, finding the coral reef only a partial check. Ordi- 
narily a reef insures a harbor from the force of the 
waves, and leaves only the direct fury of the winds to be 
encountered. But the reef at Apia is a lower barrier than 
such harbors usually possess, and may not be seen at high 
tide. 

At midnight, rain was falling. The wind still increased. 
The vessels were pitching fearfully. At this time the 
Eber, nearest the shore, began dragging her anchors, and 
was compelled to aid them with her engines. At one 
o'clock the Vandalia, also, was compelled to use her en- 
gines. Should the wind increase, their case was truly 
desperate. 

The rain poured in torrents ; fiercer grew the gale. By 
three o'clock every vessel in the harbor was dragging her 
anchors. There might be a collision, or a wreck, at any 
time. Every able-bodied man was required, that any 
emergency might be met. Neither officer nor private 
could think of sleep. 

Those on shore realized the peril of the situation. Ac- 
customed to heavy gales, the natives slept soundly for a 
time in their low huts. At length, the crash of falling- 
trees and the tearing away of roofs began to be heard in 
the storm. Little knots of people crept about in the dark- 
ness, seeking shelter from the tempest. Sand and pebbles, 
gathered up from the beach, were hurled by the wind with 
cutting force. The tide was rising, and the gale brought 
it into the streets, a hundred feet above the usual high 
water mark. The spray from the dashing surf sprang 



UOO GREAT DISASTERS. 

high, in the air, and beat into the windows of houses near- 
est the shore. It was a memorable night. 

Long before dawn the natives were huddled in little 
groups about the shore, gazing at the shifting lights of the 
tossing vessels. Their houses were being wrecked, their 
crops and trees destroyed, but they themselves were meas- 
urably safe. But those in the harbor ! 

There was little need of conversation ; and, indeed, did 
one wish to speak to his neighbor, he was compelled to 
shout in his ear. As each peered into his fellow's face in 
the uncertain light, he saw the shadow of a terrible fear 
and a desperate resolve that spoke plainer than any words. 
Explanations were useless ; that tacit understanding was 
enough. For the time, thrones, principalities, feuds and 
hostilities were forgotten. The followers of Tamasese and 
Mataafa were shoulder to shoulder. No longer was there 
thought of the foeman who had exiled their chief and 
bombarded their villages. Out in that seething caldron 
were scores of human beings, battling for life with wind 
and wave. That was enough. 

As the day drew near, the white men on the shore 
began to join the little groups of natives. Through the 
gloom could be seen the lights of the plunging ships, and 
ever and anon there came on the gale the sound of shouted 
orders, like a distant echo. The wavering of the lights 
showed that, despite steam and anchor, the vessels were 
slowly dragging about, crossing and re-crossing each 
others' paths. The breathless watchers on the beach lis- 
tened for the crash of collision that would be the death- 
knell of scores of gallant marines. Some shielded their 
faces with bits of tile, and endeavored to distinguish the 
position of the respective ships. Less hopeful than the 
whites, the natives saw no chance of escape. Which ves- 
sel would strike first ? Would any be saved ? 



GREAT SAMOAN IUKKKANE. 



201 



Tl 



Between five and six o'clock, it began to grow light, 
le position of the vessels was completely altered. Forced 




from their moorings, they were drifting toward the inner 
reef. Each contended stubbornly with the storm. Vol- 
umes of black smoke poured from the furnaces of the 



202 GREAT DISASTER^. 

quivering hulls. A number of the sailing vessels were 
already on the reef. Fragments of wreckage began to be 
tossed ashore. The Trenton and Vandalia, being farthest 
out in the harbor, were scarcely visible through the mist 
and si^ray. The large iron hulls were tossed about like 
corks. Wave after wave dashed over their decks. The 
men swarmed about the masts and the lower rigging, 
clinging to anything they could grasp. The Eber, Adler 
and Nipsic were within a few yards of each other and close 
on the fatal reef. Each vessel seemed as though endowed 
with a life of its own. They struggled like wild creatures; 
as the stag might struggle in the clutch of a panther. 

The Eber slowly retreated toward the reef, contesting 
every inch. Suddenly she paused, recovered, and dashed 
forward into the teeth of the furious storm. 

It was her last desperate sally. The current bore her 
to the right. In a moment she collided with the Nipsic, 
her bow carrying away a boat and several feet of the post- 
quarter rail. Falling back, she fouled with the Olga, and 
her rudder was carried away. This left her helpless. 
Swinging broadside to the wind, she lay a few moments 
rolling heavily in the trough of the sea. Over her deck 
the surf foamed and roared. 

At length, a gigantic wave lifted her up and hurled her 
with awful force upon the reef. Striking fairly on her 
keel, she heeled over toward the sea. No further trace of 
her was seen. Evtry timber must have been shattered. 
Doubtless more of her crew were crushed than were 
drowned. 

The horror-stricken natives, accustomed to the sea from 
infancy, dashed into the surf, struggling with death for 
the lives of their late oppressors. They were but savages ; 
they knew no better. 

For a few moments, not a hand was raised from the site 



GREAT SAMOAN HURRICANE. 20% 

of the wreck. At length, a few faintly struggling forms 
appeared in the surf. They were grasped by eager hands, 
and safely reached the shore. Another was seen clinging 
to the piling of a small wharf, beaten half senseless by the 
furious waves. He was drawn ashore. It was a handsome 
boyish-faced lieutenant, the sole surviving officer. Out of 
a total force of seventy-six men and officers on the Eber, 
five only were saved. The young lieutenant was the officer 
of the watch at the time of the wreck. The others were 
all below, and must have been crushed to death. This 
occurred about six o'clock in the morning. 

Finding no other survivors, those on shore turned to 
the remaining vessels once more. Their position had 
changed again. The situation rapidly grew more perilous. 

The Adler had fouled with the Olga, and was close on 
the reef, some two hundred yards from where the Eber 
struck, and like it, was approaching the shore broadside 
on. The suspense was prolonged and painful. For nearly 
half an hour she lay thus swept by the waves. 

Finally, a huge roller tossed her on top of the reef and 
turned her over on her side, throwing those on deck into 
the water. They struggled to regain the vessel ; those 
who succeeded clung to guns, tackling, spars and masts ; 
but twenty were drowned. The vessel lay with her keel 
to the sea and nearly her entire hull out of water ; so those 
who clung to the rigging were fairly protected. 

During the day the natives succeeded in getting a line 
to the wreck, and a number of the sailors escaped. But 
the line parted while some were still on the vessel, and 
could not be replaced. The remainder of the crew clung 
to the wreck through all that terrible day and night, and 
were finally gotten off when at the verge of exhaustion. 

While the Adler was drifting toward the reef, the Nipsic 
was battling with fearful odds. Facing the wind, she was 



204 



GREAT DISASTERS. 




i 


\ 


c 



GREAT SAMOAN HURRICANE. 205 

nevertheless dragging her three anchors, and receding 
toward the reef. 

But her chief danger lay in another source. The gigantic 
Olga, which had crippled the two vessels already wrecked, 
threatened to crush her also. While the Nipsic endeav- 
ored by skillful use of steam and rudder to avoid the Olga, 
a little schooner, the Lily, fell in her way and was cut 
down in an instant. There were but three men on board ; 
two of whom succeeded in reaching the Olga. 

Just then it occurred to the commander of the Nipsic 
to reinforce the anchors by attaching a hawser to one of 
the heavy eight-inch rifles and casting it overboard. Ere 
this was accomplished the Olga struck her a terrible blow 
directly amidships. Her smoke-stack was overturned and 
fell on the deck with a terrible crash. One of her boats 
was carried away and the rail splintered. No one at first 
knew the extent of the damage. The frightened crew 
clambered into the rigging, thinking the ship was sinking. 
The lumbering smoke-stack dashed from side to side with 
the roll of the ship. 

It was a frightful moment. Only a few yards away the 
Eber had disappeared. The Nipsic had swung around 
and was rapidly Hearing the spot. Only promptness and 
most skillful management saved her officers and crew from 
the fate of the Eber. 

Captain Mullane was on the bridge at the time, and 
took in the situation in an instant. With the smoke-stack 
gone it would be impossible to keep up steam; without 
steam the reef could not be avoided. At once the smoke- 
stack was chocked to prevent its rolling about the deck, 
and orders were given to beach the ship while a small head 
of steam was still available. Two hundred yards away 
lay the sandy beach before the American consulate. 

A great throng awaited anxiously the result of this 



206 GREAT DISASTERS. 

manoeuvre. The vessel's course was parallel to the terrible 
reef, and but a few feet from it. Her crew were gathered 
about the bow, and those on shore recognized many a 
familiar face or personal friend in the driving spray, on 
whom they might be looking for the last time. One or 
two of the crew had been on shore during the night, and 
now stood watching the fate of their comrades. 

Barely escaping the reef, the steamer plunged into the 
sand a few yards from the shore, and swung around diag- 
onally to the storm. The breakers dashed furiously upon 
her stern, and it seemed as though she would be beaten to 
pieces in an instant. Those who escaped must do so at 
once. 

Five sailors dashed into a boat ; but the falls did not 
work properly, and one end of the boat dropped. The 
men fell into the sea and were drowned. The surgeon 
and five sick men were placed in another boat : no sooner 
launched than capsized. But the natives had formed a 
chain by grasping each others hands ; and dashing into 
surf where a white man would have perished at once, they 
seized the men and passed them to the shore. Several of 
those on the Nipsic took advantage of the opportunity and 
sprang overboard. But two of these were lost. 

Meanwhile, all those remaining on board had crowded 
into the forecastle. The natives in the surf, under the 
direction of two of their chiefs, Seumanu Tafa and Salu 
Anae, had succeeded in getting lines to the vessels, and 
double hawsers were quickly stretched to the shore. Scores 
of eager hands were outstretched to assist in the work. 
The waves broke high on the beach, and the undertow 
was so strong that even the natives narrowly escaped being 
carried out into the bay. The white men on shore scarcely 
dared venture into the surf. The rain poured more heav- 
ily. The clouds of flying sand grew thicker and more 



GREAT 8AMOAN HHRKICANE. 



20; 




208 GREAT DISASTERS. 

cutting. The hoarse shouts of the officers mingled with 
the roar of the storm, and the stricken vessel quivered in 
every fibre. Fragments of wreckage were ever and anon 
hurled amongst those in the surf. The gloom of the awful 
tempest combined with all these things to produce a tab- 
leau of chaos itself. 

Yet, throughout the whole fearful scene, the natives 
never faltered, but sang and shouted words of encourage- 
ment to each other as they stood at their chosen posts. 
The white men on shore rendered all the aid in their 
power; but the posts of danger and need were filled by 
the natives. An eye-witness of the scene says : 

" To one who saw the noble work of those men during 
the storm, it is a cause of wonder that they should be 
called savages by more enlightened races. There seemed 
to be no instinct of the savage in a man who could rush 
into that boiling torrent of water that broke upon the reef, 
and place his own life in peril to save the helpless drown- 
ing men of a foreign country. 

" While the Americans and Germans were treated alike, 
it was plain that their sympathies were with the Ameri- 
cans, and they redoubled their efforts when they saw an 
opportunity to aid the men who represented a country 
which had insisted that their native government should 
not be interfered with by a foreign power." 

The coolness of Captain Mullane had mastered the 
frightened crew. There was no longer confusion. The 
officers stood by the rail and directed the movements of 
the men. Time after time the rolling billows dashed the 
men from the hawser ; but the gallant natives succeeded 
in saving all. By eight o'clock the Nlpsic was deserted. 
The three s-.nalle.st of the war ships were wrecked. 

The four large men-of-war were well out in the harbor, 
and for the time measurably safe. 



GREAT SAMOAN HURKICANE. 209 

But near tea o'clock, the situation became alarming 
again. Masses of floating wreckage struck the Trenton, 
as it was lifted by a heavy wave, and carried away the 
rudder and propeller. Her anchors, unaided, would not 
keep her from the reef, or from fouling with the other 
vessels in the harbor. 

The Vandalia and the Calliope were drifting toward 
the wreck of the Adler. As the Vandalia endeavored to 
steam away, the iron prow of the Englishman arose high 
in the air and fell with full force upon the Vandalia 's port- 
quarter. The Calliope lost her jib-boom, and the heavy 
timbers of the Vandalia were shivered. Every man near 
the point of the collision was thrown from his feet by the 
shock. Water was rushing through a great rent in the 
cabin. It seemed that the Vandalia had received her 
death blow. The frightened men swarmed from the 
hatches, but presently returned to their posts. 

At this crisis the Englishman essayed a bold manoeuvre. 
Seeing that to remain where he was would be, in a few 
more moments, ruin to the Vandalia, he resolved to take 
all risks himself, and letting go all anchors, swung around 
to the wind and endeavored to put to sea. For a moment 
the vessel seemed stationary. Then the tremendous power 
of the propeller began to tell, and the vessel moved slowly 
forward in the teeth of the storm. Volumes of smoke 
poured from her funnels, and the ship groaned in every 
timber. Gradually it became clear that she could escape 
from the harbor. 

This is one of the most daring feats in the naval annals. 
It was the one desperate chance to save the Calliope and 
her crew from certain death. An accident to the machin- 
ery at this moment, or a slight change in the direction of 
the wind as she neared the narrow gate- way of the harbor, 
would have been fatal. Down in the fire room, the men 
14 



210 



GREAT DISASTERS. 




THE CALLIOPE PUTTING 1<> SKA. 



GREAT SAMOAN HURRICANE. 211 

worked as they never had before. The Trenton lay close 
to the reef, and the Calliope was compelled to pass between 
the two. The flagship's fires were out, and she could do 
nothing to save herself. Every man felt that a few mo- 
ments longer would find him a grave in the coral reef. 
Those on shore were watching with in tensest anxiety. 

Just then a strange sound came, borne on the wind ; a 
wild ringing cry from the four hundred and fifty on board 
the Trenton. The Americans were cheering the Calliope. 
Expecting death for themselves, they rejoiced that their 
friends might yet escape, and the heart of every English- 
man went out to the brave Americans who gave their 
parting tribute to the Queen's ship. 

There is something peculiarly touching in this incident. 
It is far above the morituri te salatamus of the gladiator 
in the arena. It was an expression of immortal courage ; 
the dying saluting the victor; the doomed saluting the 
saved ; manhood distressed greeting manhood triumphant. 
The English seamen returned the cry. The Calliope 
safely reached the sea. Her commander afterward said : 
" Those ringing cheers of the American flagship pierced 
deep into my heart, and I will ever remember that mighty 
outburst of fellow-feeling, which I felt came from the 
bottom of the hearts of the gallant admiral and his crew. 
Every man on board the Calliope felt as I did ; it made 
us work to win. I can only say, God bless America and 
her noble sailors." 

Meanwhile the Vandalia, seeing her doom certain, en- 
deavored to reach the beach, but being a much larger 
vessel than the Kipsic, she could not come so near the 
shore. A blow from a terrific wave in the night had 
hurled the captain across his cabin and so injured him 
that he was unable to control his vessel. His executive 
officer, Carlin, was in command, but the captain stood by 



212 GREAT PISASTEKS. 

his side to the last. Carlin's coolness and nerve were 
wonderful. He had been on duty thirty consecutive 
hours, and had not tasted food all that time. 

In order to reach the beach, the Vanda/ia was compelled 
to execute the same perilous feat that had been performed 
three hours before by the Nipsic. Slipping her anchors, 
she crowded on all steam and skirted the edge of the reef, 
finally dashing into the soft sand two hundred yards from 
the shore and eighty yards from the stern of the Kipsic. 
The engines were stopped and the fires put out ; all hands 
were ordered on deck, and the vessel swung around broad- 
side to the waves. 

At first, her position being supposed safe, it was thought 
the two hundred and forty men on board might well 
remain until the storm was over. The men were scattered 
about the deck and forecastle, clinging to the guns, the 
masts, rigging and sides of the ship. Within half an hour 
her real danger became apparent; she wallowed lower and 
lower in the yielding sand; more and more frequently the 
- - da>hed over her, flooding the hatchways with water. 
Her boats were dashed from the davits and torn to pieces. 
It was attempted to fire lines to the shore, but all her pow- 
der was ruined. The spray and mist arose in such masses 
from the sides of the ship, that those on shore could hardly 
distinguish her position. 

At this moment a brave sailor volunteered to swim 
through the surf with a line, in the hope that his com- 
rades might be rescued. It was a perilous task, as the 
water was filled with floating wreckage. Fastening a cord 
to his body, he sprang overboard : an immense wave hurled 
him against the side of the vessel and struck him senseless. 
He was drowned almost within touch of his comrades. 
Gradually the men were driven from the gun-deck. By 
noon it was under water. The heavy billows that swept 



'•-.v. '.:. 
them against the odes. The 

~ -y . _■ 

.ig, and a few o& warned m 

poop-deck. ThewaT -_t. 

boat conld live in the iurt. and there wa- . :-r.-a- 

The scores on the land were desperate, bit die Yamdaheft 

ally, they rented on bolder efforts thai had L 

1 :-,-r:^: i 

of a mile above the wrecked war ship, endeavored to cake 

- - - 

-'-~ ~-~ ----- "..'^ i.-:.-_ir-rd ;:-"- :: :.-- ~~-o~.. V:.-. 'it 
-"-- '— --: -"- :-•; ..---. r±:r- if-.or .: r. --..-. :_iir, \~- 

~- ■■"-V -'- • '-'--- ---'-■'- '■'-- '■-'■■'-■ '■-"- --^ '■'■-:-'.: :--. ,- 

one dropped into the sea, in the faint hope th& 

:^'^:.i :..-r -:--.:.". -.i:V.j. - :_-_o ^..-r-J-l iz.rr.-i: . 

man j were too weak to draw themselves op to its deck. 

- 
some cases, tore the clothing from their hod: 

~ --- -'-'---.. -:. :z ;i . -.-.-.- - _• .-■--. .-. _■ ---: r_ : 
moment. The brave Garlin stood by him endea" 

:~l v_ -_:.. \z.'i -jo :•;.._■—-.• :- : -t . ; .- ;_-i:. H- 

-i'l ' -". -T±:i-;.: -:;-:_._ ^:: : . ...:__ or :_:; tiio __ __ 
i~"i r-r::-o-i i ..:- ■ ; — -.--::. : ~ --'--•"- ? -._.-. .: -„.■__;. :o 
given to some of the others. At length an immense roller 



214 



GREAT DISASTERS. 



to receive the shock. A heavy machine gun was torn 
from its fastening and hurled full upon the captain. His 
body passed overboard and was never more seen. 




One by one others of the officers were beaten from the 
deck. The suffering was not only with those on the ves- 
sel. The brave fellows who labored on the shore and in 



GREAT SAMOAX HURRICANE. 215 

the surf were cut and bruised by flying sand and the float- 
ing fragments. Exposure to the sea water was making 
them stiff and sore. The natives sought occasional shelter 
and rest behind an up-turned boat or the masses of drift, 
and then returned to the battle. 

Finally, as by common consent, nearly all of those left 
in the rigging dropped into the sea. It was an easy mat- 
ter to reach the JVipsic, and a few succeeded in clambering 
to her deck ; but many were too weak and exhausted to 
hold on long enough to receive assistance from their com- 
rades, and too far off to be reached by the natives. 

By three o'clock the hull of the Vandalla had almost 
disappeared. A few men were still in the rigging, lying- 
exhausted on the small platforms or clinging to the rat- 
lines or yards with the desperation of dying men, expect- 
ing every moment to be their last. Their arms and limbs 
were bruised and swollen and cut by holding on the rough 
ropes. For twenty-four hours they had been without food, 
and cold and exposure were doing their work. At this 
moment the rear of the Nipsic swung to the sea, so that 
but fifty yards separated the two vessels. A successful effort 
was made to stretch a line between the two ; but before all 
in the fore-rigging could be rescued, the line parted and 
could not be replaced. 

Meanwhile the Trenton, without steam or rudder, lay 
with her head to the wind, while volumes of water clashed 
through the hawse-pipes and flooded the engine room. 
Had the vessel gone down suddenly, none below could 
have escaped. They stood at their posts till waist deep 
in the water and the fires were extinct. The berth-deck 
was flooded. Lieut. Allen and a portion of tlie men made 
repeated efforts to close the hawse-pipes, but the force of 
the waves tore away every plug. Still they labored on, 
far beneath the decks, momentarily expecting the last. 



216 mma* mumm 

The admiral and his officers stood on the bridge direct- 
ins: the movements of the vessel. When almost on the 
eastern shoals a bold coup was suggested by Lieut. Brown. 
Every man was ordered into the port-rigging, and the 
compact mass of bodies was used as a sail. The vessel 
was brought into the center of the bay again. Then she 
commenced to drift back toward the Olga, which had been 
holding up in the gale more successfully than any of the 
other vessels. The stars and stripes were flung to the 
breeze. If she were doomed, she would go down with 
flying colors. The Olga endeavored to steam out of the 
way, but her bow struck the starboard quarter of the flag- 
ship, shivering the heavy timbers, carrying away several 
boats, and throwing the flag to the deck. Again it was 
flung from the mast-head. The Olga reached the mud-flat 
on the east side of the harbor. Not a life was lost, and a 
few weeks later the vessel was hauled off and saved. 

The struggle of the Trenton was almost ended. It was 
five o'clock and daylight was fading as the immense war 
ship bore down upon the Vandalia. When she struck 
the latter, all would be over. 

That was a memorable scene. The night was coming 
on the wings of the storm. Those in the Vandalia 's main- 
top still clung, bruised and bleeding. Their eyes were 
blinded by the salty spray. They looked on the black 
waters below knowing they had no strength for further 
battle with the waves. The final hour was upon them. 
The great black hull of the Trenton could be seen through 
the gloom, about to dash upon the stranded vessel and 
srind her to atoms. Those on the beach ceased their efforts 
in despair, and stood waiting the last act of the tragedy. 

At this moment there came over the waves a renewal of 
the wild cheer of the morning. Four hundred and fifty 
voices were heard above the roar of the storm, " Three 



6REAT SAMOA!* HtTESKUtt 21? 

cheers for the Vandalia 1 " A cheer in the morning had 
animated the British ; perhaps another cheer now would 
encourage the despairing seamen of the Vandalia to hold 
on a little longer. A resjxmse went up, feeble, quavering 
and uncertain, so faint it was scarcely heard by those on 
shore. With death staring them in the face, they sent up 
a cheer for the flagship ; a cheer more pathetic than any 
lamentation. That was the saddest cry ever heard. Every 
heart on shore was melted to pity. " God help them ! " 
they murmured. 

Darkness hid the scene. The last cheer had died away. 
As those on shore listened for the crash, another strange 
sound came up from the deep. It was a wild burst of 
music in defiance of the storm. The Trenton's band was 
playing the " Star Spangled Banner." Never before had 
the thousand men on sea and shore heard such strains at 
a time like that. The feelings of the Americans on the 
beach were indescribable. The power of the music vied 
with the howling of the storm. 

Men who during that awful day had exhausted every 
means of rendering some assistance to their comrades, now 
seemed inspired to greater effort. They dashed at the 
surf like wild creatures ; but they were powerless. There 
was nothing left for them to do but wait; and, if they 
dared, to hope. 

The Trenton proved the Vandalia' s salvation. She bore 
lightly against her without a shock, and swung around in 
the sand broadside to the sunken ship. Those who re- 
mained quickly escaped to the Trenton s deck. 

By ten o'clock the beach was deserted, and all that 
tempest or man could do had been done. A few watchers 
patrolled the beach all night in hope of rescuing some one 
who might not have escaped to the Trenton. But one 
person was found — a young ensign. 



218 



GREAT DISASTERS'. 



One hundred and forty-four persons had perished 
Ninety-one were from the German vessels ; fifty-one from 




the Americans; two from a little trading schooner 
more than one-third of the bodies were recovered. 
The storm died away. It was a strange scene 



Not 
which 



GREAT SAMOAff HURRICANE. 219 

the morning sun beheld. The shore was strewn with 
drifted wreck. The shattered schooners lay about the 
reef. The streets were crossed with fallen trees, and roof- 
less houses stood amid the groves. A fragment of the 
Eber's bow was high upon the beach. Far up the western 
reef the Adler lay. The Olga stood unharmed upon the 
eastern shoal. Before the consulate, the Nipsic was fast 
in the sand. Only the bow of the Varidalia's hull could 
be seen. By her side was the Trenton, grand though in 
ruin. And above the desolation floated the Star Spangled 
Banner, triumphant over the storm. 



CHAPTER XII. 

ELECTRIC STORMS. 

"Far along, 
From peak to peak the rattling crags among, 
Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud, 
But every mountain now hath found a tongue, 
And Jura answers through her misty shroud. 
Rack to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud ! 

And this is in the night : —Most glorious night! 

Thou wert not sent for slumber! let me be 

A sharer in thy fierce and far delight, 

A portion of the tempest and of thee ! 

How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea, 

And the big rain comes dancing to the earth ! 

And now again 'tis black — and now, the glee, 

Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain mirth, 

As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth." 

WHO has not quailed before the storm? Few, indeed, 
are they whose spirits kindle with the flash of 
the lightning, and joy in the roar of the thunder, that fills 
the heavens like the voice of many waters. Bold is the 
heart that in such scenes can mount with a Byron, and 
say to the Avernian gloom that wraps the frightened world, 

" Let me be 
A portion of the tempest and of the ! " 

Only that fiery, untameable spirit, fearless of man or 
demon, dare so approach the King of the Storm, or pat 
the mane of Ocean in his wrath. A thousand plaudits 
has he won — but not a follower : for when the lightning 
flames and roars, the cheering rabble slink away in fear, 
nor dare to emulate that genius, strange and wild as 
chaos as itself. 

22 



ELECTEIC JTORMS. 



221 




ffiwi&fc 



222 GREAT DISASTERS. 

The fear of the tempest belongs to every age. The 
ancient Greeks, from whom the Romans borrowed and 
modified the myth, told how Hephaistos toiled in his vol- 
canic forge to form the bolts of Zens, great father of gods 
and men. These flaming weapons could none oppose. By 
them rebellious giants Avere overturned. And the bold 
Goth, rugged and vigorous, heard the voice of the war-god, 
Thor, shout to him : 

" Mine eyes are the lightning, 
The wheels of my chariot 
Roll in the thunder! " 

The Arab saw the wild combat of genii, whom the great 
Solomon had not subdued. Woe to the luckless wight 
who should arouse their ill-will ! The Arabian Nights 
tell us of a contest between one of these spirits of fire and a 
beautiful princess, versed in magic. The swarthy Moor 
beheld the hand of God, waving on his angels to contest 
with the hosts of evil : and the same idea of wild combat 
in the spirit world is found in the myths of the Caribs 
and Lapps. In the Hindoo cosmogony, the lightning and 
storm are the chief weapons of Siva, the destroyer, who 
will one day blot the world out of existence. Only in the 
red man's tales do we find the idea of the Christian world, 
of one Great Spirit who rules all nature. In the Persian 
mythology, lightning and gloom represent the contest 
between the forces of Ahriman, prince of evil, and Ormuzd, 
the great creator and preserver of good. And among the old 
Etruscans, from whom the Romans borrowed many rites 
and ceremonies, the lightning was one of the chief objects 
in their system of augury and divination. A favorable 
flash of lightning outweighed all portents of ill. The 
thunder was the voice of the gods, communicating their 
will to men. 

And so the ancients were content to pass the mystery 



ELECTRIC STORMS. 223 

by, unsolved. Now and then a Pliny, a Seneca, an Aris- 
totle, ventured a timid speculation upon the origin and 
cause of lightning, but as electricity was an unknown 
force to them, their conjectures were as wild as the chi- 
merical tales of Cimmerian darkness in ultra-Scythian 
realms, or of the Utopian haven of bliss, where the Hy- 
perboreans dwelt. But one of their various conjectures is 
worthy of note, as it contains an element of truth. It was, 
that the lightning was produced by mutual friction or 
violent concussion of the clouds. 

Since electricity has been recognized as the agent in the 
phenomena of thunder storms, inquiry as to whether it is 
a cause or a result of the formation of clouds, has produced 
evidence in favor of the latter fact (though clouds differ- 
ently charged have mutual attraction for each other), for 
rapid motion of gases may be made to generate electricity. 
A natural sequence would be that thunder storms are most 
violent where clouds are heaviest. Hence, thunder storms 
are naturally most frequent and violent in the tropics, 
where the greater heat produces immense masses of vapor . 
and are unknown in the polar world, where theco mpar- 
ative dryness of the atmosphere is unfavorable. The 
unusual amount of electricity in dense clouds in rapid 
motion is shown by the tremenduous electrical displays 
attendant upon tornadoes and cyclones. Another illustra- 
tion of lightning resulting from cloud agency, rather than 
controlling them, may be found in the cloudless Sahara, 
where evidences of electricity are sometimes to be observed 
in the time of the Khamsin, while the thunder storm is 
unknown. One notable exception to the rule that thun- 
der storms are violent and frequent in all tropical regions 
is to be found in Peru, with its cloudless skies and eternal 
sun, where a rainfall or a thunder storm would be as great 
a curiosity as a palm tree at the north pole. The mere 



/ 



224 GREAT DISASTERS. 

fact of elevation renders the thunder storm more violent 
in mountainous regions, in both temperate and tropical 
worlds. 

Knowing the character of this mysterious power, we 
may not enter upon a lengthy discussion of the changes, 
chemical, physical and otherwise, that may be produced 
by it. Within the scope of this work, only its rank as 
an agent of destruction and a historical factor may be 
considered. Is electricity to be greatly feared ? to be put 
on a par with the flood, the hurricane, and the earthquake? 
Has it ever figured in the history of nations sufficiently to 
directly affect their destinies? 

The first and most familiar aspect of its power is the 
thunder storm, which needs not a word of description. 
It results merely from the discharges passing between two 
bodies oppositely charged. There is one comparatively 
rare form of lightning, in which it appears as a globe of 
fire slowly descending, with wayward and unexpected 
dashes to the side, sometimes coming. down a chimney and 
playing about the floor like a kitten, much to the discom- 
fiture of the inmates, till it at length explodes with im- 
mense force, hurling zig-zag lightnings all about. This 
peculiar freak, several times observed, is as yet unex- 
plained. 

The lightning seems throughout most civilized nations 
to be the most dreaded of all natural agencies, if we may 
judge from the many precautions taken against it. And 
in truth it is a terrific power, cleaving the hardest rocks, 
rending the mighty oak, and fusing the most refractory 
substances. Darting into the soil it frequently forms tubes 
of vitreous appearance by fusing the earth and stones as 
it passes. The writer has seen masses of straw fused in 
in the same way. And when we remember that French 
savants have, with the most powerful of batteries been 



ELECTRIC STORMS. 



225 



able to produce tubes only au inch in length and one-fif- 
tieth of an inch in diameter by passing shocks through 
powdered glass, we may well stand in awe at the terrible 
power that produces tubes thirty feet long and four inches 
in diameter in the far more obstinate feldspar and quartz. 
There are numerous cases of death bv lio-htning ; hut 
the instances in which more than one person has been 
killed by a flash are comparatively rare. The freaks 




IDEAL SUBTERRANEAN STORM. 



played far outdo those of the wind, and puzzle the wisest. 
March 20, 1784, about four hundred people were assem- 
bled in the theatre at Mantua, when lightning struck the 
building, and killed two persons, injuring ten. Butmanv 
who were not hurt found the bolt bad melted their watch- 
keys, earrings, and split diamonds they were wearing. How 
such feats could be performed without in the least harming 
the possessors is a mystery. 

June 11, 1819, while a large assembly were attending 



le 



226 GREAT DISASTERS. 

divine services in the church of Chateau Neuf les Mon- 
tiers, in France, lightning struck the building, killing- 
nine persons and wounding eighty-two. In 1715 the 
lightning fell into the abbey of Noirmoutiers, near Tours, 
and killed twenty-two horses, but did no further harm to 
the one hundred and fifty monks at supper than to turn 
over their one hundred and fifty bottles of wine. In 1855, 
lightning struck a flock of sheep in France, killing seventy- 
eight of them and two dogs, and sparing the old shep- 
herdess. A Fiench author relates the case of a priest 
who was killed by lightning, while the horse on which he 
rode was unhurt, and quietly continued homeward with 
the stiffened corpse. A somewhat similar case has come 
within the knowledge of the writer : a man on horseback 
being killed, and the saddle perforated ; yet the horse re- 
mained apparently unhurt. I remember another instance 
of a man who was struck, and escaped unharmed ; but 
one of his boots was torn to shreds and some of the hob- 
nails melted : and I myself have been struck upon the 
foot, with no other result than a peculiar numbness, last- 
ing nearly half an hour. 

In many instances a livid streak is the only mark left 
upon the dead body ; and again it may be torn almost to 
atoms ; while in some cases not the slightest trace is per- 
ceptible. The greater number fall in the first class. In 
1838, some cattle were killed by lightning near Nym- 
negen, in Holland. Their bones were shattered to a 
thousand fragments, as though by nitro-glycerine ; while 
externally there was no particular token visible. Some 
sheep killed in Bohemia, in 1718, were similarly served. 
The fragments of bone were driven so thoroughly through- 
out the flesh that the carcasses were unfit for food. 

In 1869, the mayor of Pradette, France, was killed by 
lightning, and all his clothes, with the exception of one 



ELECTRIC STORMS. 227 

shoe, were torn from the body. "August 11, 1855, a man 
■was struck by lightning on a road near Vallerois, and en- 
tirely divested of his raiment, only a few remnants of 
which could afterwards be found. Ten minutes after the 
stroke he was restored to consciousness, complained of the 
cold, and asked how he came to be without any clothing. 
No doubt, he would have more easily consoled himself for 
the loss of his apparel had he known of the case reported 
by Sestier, of a man whose whole right side was burnt, as if 
he had been held for some time over a fire-pan, while his 
shirt, his drawers and the rest of his dress bore no marks 
whatever of combustion." Sometimes the clothing is found 
unstitched; again, it is burnt, and again, in some myste- 
rious manner, seems to be annihilated. 

Prof. Tyndall relates his sensations upon having a pow- 
erful electric discharge pass through him : " Life was abso- 
lutely blotted out for a very sensible interval, without a trace 
of pain. In a second or so consciousness returned. * * * 
The intellectual consciousness of my position was restored 
with singular rapidity, but not so the optical conscious- 
ness. * * * The appearance which my body pre- 
sented to myself was that of a number of separate pieces. 
The arms, for example, were detached from the trunk and 
suspended in the air. In fact, memory and the power of 
reasoning appeared to be complete long before the optic 
nerve was restored to healthy action. But what I wish 
chiefly to dwell upon here, is the absolute painlessness of 
the shock ; and there can not be a doubt that to a person 
struck dead by lightning the passage from life to death 
occurs without consciousness being in the least degree im- 
plicated. It is an abrupt stoppage of sensation, unaccom- 
panied by a pang." 

There is another class of peculiar freaks performed by 
this subtle force, which the following instances illustrate. 



228 GREAT DISASTERS. 

Prof. Perty tells of a thunder storm in Switzerland, when 
" the lightning sprang from a pear tree upon the verandah 
of a house, where it killed a boy and wounded his mother. 
The j)ear tree and the house were burned down. On the 
arm of the wounded woman a remarkably elegant impres- 
sion of twigs and leaves, like a photographic copy of part 
of the pear tree, was found." 

There are several cases noted of persons sitting near 
windows when lightning flashing near by has produced an 
exact likeness of the person, as though engraved on the 
glass. 

" In 182-5 the lightning fell upon the brigantine El 
Buon Servo, which lay at anchor in the bay of Armiro, at 
the mouth of the Adriatic Sea. The superstitious Ionian 
sailors generally fasten a horseshoe to the foremasts of 
their ships, probably fancying that this simple means 
affords them protection against the evil intentions of wiz- 
ards and witches. Of course, the Buon Servo was not 
without its horseshoe. Antonio Teodoro, of Scarpanto, 
was sitting near the mast, when it was struck by lightning. 
He was killed at once. No marks of combustion were 
found on his body, nor were his clothes torn ; but on his 
back was found the distinct impression of a horseshoe of 
the same size as that which was nailed to the mast." 

In the records of the Academy of Sciences, we find that 
"the Signora Morosa, a lady of Lugano, who sat near a 
window during a thunder storm, received a shock which 
did her no further injury; but a flower which stood in the 
passage of the electric fluid was distinctly pictured on her 
thigh." She carried the mark to her grave. 

Lightning is one of the most useful purifiers of the 
atmosphere. There can be no doubt that large quantities 
of noxious exhalations are destroyed by electrical dis- 
charges. Its beneficial effects in this respect have been 



ELECTRIC STORMS. 229 

long noted. "Both Hippocrates and Galenus remark that 
the water which falls during a thunder storm is more 
healthy to drink than that which proceeds from a uni- 
formly clouded sky: and Plutarch mentions that the rain 
from a thunder cloud is considered as more favorable to 
vegetation, and communicates to plants a particular flavor." 
There are also on record a number of instances in which 
persons long in poor health, on receiving light shocks, 
have greatly improved in health and appearance. Similar 
results have been noticed in plant life. Doubtless such 
cases as these gave rise to the belief of the ancients, that 
to be struck by lightning was to be favored by the gods. 
This opinion was especially noted in the case of Mith- 
ridates. Slightly wounded in the forehead by lightning 
when a child, he escaped unhurt later in life, when his 
sword was totally destroyed. These facts caused him to 
be held in superstitious fear by the Romans. And Quin- 
itus Julius Eburnus became consul, B. C, mainly because 
of a similar mark of divine favor. Those who were killed 
by a flash were believed to be not subject to decay, and 
were robed in white and buried where they fell. So 
also those whose tombs lightning struck were peculiarly 
honored of Heaven. Lord Byron alludes to this in his 
stanza upon the bust of Ariosto on the poet's tomb at 
Ferrara, which had been struck by lightning : 

" The lightning rent from Ariosto's bust 
The iron crown of laurel's mimicked leaves, 
Nor was the ominous element unjust, 
For the true laurel wreath which glory weaves 
Is of the tree no bolt of thunder cleaves, 
And the false semblance but disgraced his brow; 
Yet, still, if fondly superstition grieves, 
Know, that the lightning sanctifies below 
Whate'er it strikes — yon head is doubly sacred now." 

The identification of electricity with lightning is a com- 
paratively recent occurrence. The story of Benjamin 



230 GREAT DISASTERS. 

Franklin, patron saint of the devout lightning-rod agent, 
is too familiar to require repetition. Yet, the idea was first 
broached in the latter part of the seventeenth century by 
two students of the new force, more than fifty years before 
Franklin's experiments. 

Thunder clouds usually float from two thousand to five 
thousand feet from the earth ; but there is one case on 
record of two priests being killed by lightning from a 
cloud only thirty yards from the ground ; while another 
thunder storm is noted as having occurred eighteen thou- 
sand feet from the earth. As sound travels about one 
thousand and ninety feet per second, any one may ascer- 
tain the distance of a flash by noting the time that elapses 
ere the thunder is heard. All existing records fail to tell 
of thunder heard more than four miles ; while the can- 
nonading at Paris in 1871 could be heard one hundred 
and five miles ; and Waterloo could be heard one hundred 
and fifty miles. 

The action of lightning is instantaneous, and when near 
by the report is at first a single sharp crack ; but it is 
always followed by a long rolling, so characteristic that 
every name given the thunder in a measure endeavors to 
imitate it. The reason of the continued roll from a single 
flash is simple, and is to be found in the fact that a flash 
usually travels several miles ; and as sound travels as 
stated above, the sounds generated at different distances 
come to the ear in rapid succession, resulting in a contin- 
uous roar. 

As the flash is due merely to the attraction between two 
bodies charged with opposite kinds of electricity, the dis- 
charge may pass either up or down. Cases are on record 
of persons on a mountain side being killed by lightning 
from a cloud below them, and of people on the ground 
killed by lightning dashing from them toward the sky. 



ELECT UK' STORMS. 231 

Among the more notable fatalities resulting from light- 
ning may be mentioned the terrible thunder storm of 179)3, 
at Buenos Ayres, when the lightning struck thirty-seven 
times within the city, and killed nineteen people. A num- 
ber of persons were killed on June 18, 1872, in England, 
at different places; and numerous others perished within 
the month from similar discharges. 

Electricity seems to kill by destroying nervous power. 
Cardanus tells of eight reapers being killed while taking 
their meal under an oak. When the witnesses of the oc- 
currence ran to the spot, they saw r a strange sight. The 
victims " seemed to be still busy with their frugal repast. 
One of them held his glass, another was putting some 
bread into his mouth, a third had his hand in the dish. 
The angel of death had struck them so violently that the 
whole surface of their bodies bore the marks of his black 
wings. They seemed so many statues sculptured in black 
marble." 

" In another case where ten reapers were killed under a 
hedge, one of them had a dog on his knee at the time when 
he was struck. The unfortunate man was caressing with 
one hand his little companion, and with the other giving 
him a piece of bread. Both master and dog were merely 
inert masses of rigid muscle and stiffened sinew, and yet 
the bread was still held by the lifeless hand. The dog, 
with his mouth expressively open, seemed still to beg for 
the proffered morsel." 

A peasant woman in the suburbs of Nancy was struck 
while gathering flowers. She was found standing, holding 
in her hand the daisy she had been plucking. A French 
soldier took refuge under a tree during a storm ; a peasant 
sheltered himself in a copse near by. The soldier was killed 
by lightning. The storm over, the peasant crept out and 
called to the soldier to come on. Receiving no answer, he 



23^ 



GREAT DISASTERS. 







HARVESTERS KILLKI) IiV LIGHTNING. 



ELECTRIC STORMS. 233 

went up and touched the erect, motionless figure. It at 
once melted away. Only a little dust remained. A simi- 
lar result occurred not long since in a powerful electric 
light plant. A large rat endeavored to cross some of the 
machinery, and at once became rigid, as though an image 
of stone. One of the employes, taking a stick, endeav- 
ored to push the carcass off; it at once disappeared in a 
cloud of impalpable dust. 

Terrible results have followed from lightning striking 
into powder magazines. August 18, 1769, the powder 
vault in the tower of St. Nazaire, at Brescia, was struck. 
The explosion destroyed one-sixth of the city completely, 
and damaged all buildings more or less. Three thousand 
persons were killed, while the property ruined amounted to 
over $3,000,000. June 26, 1807, the lightning struck a 
magazine in the fortress of the Luxembourg, ruining the 
lower town, and killing or wounding two hundred and 
thirty people. In 1856 the powder vaults in the church 
of St. John, in the island of Rhodes were struck. More 
than two hundred people were instantly killed. 

The lightning often shows in itself a sort of explosive 
power. Every one is familiar with the blasting of trees, 
and the throwing of fragments to a great distance. Some 
unusually violent effects of this class have been noticed. 
In 1762, stones weighing one hundred and fifty pounds, 
were flung from a church in Cornwall, to a distance of 
one hundred and eighty feet. In the Shetland Isles, dur- 
ing the last century, a rock of mica schist, one hundred 
and five feet long, ten feet broad, and from three to five 
feet thick, was in an instant torn by a flash of lightning 
from its bed, and broken into three large and several 
smaller fragments. One piece twenty-six feet long, ten 
feet broad, and four feet thick, was merely inverted. A 
second, twenty-eight feet long, seventeen feet broad, and 



234 Great disaster. 

five feet thick, was hurled over a high point to a distance 
of fifty yards : another mass, forty feet long, was hurled 
still further in the same direction, quite into the sea. 

Certain localities seem to have peculiar attractive power 
for lightning. On the Norwegian coast is a narrow chan- 
nel between two dark rocky headlands, where the lightning 
seems often to play almost incessantly. The gloomy 
chasm, so frequently reverberating with the roll of the 
thunder, is viewed with superstitious fear by ignorant 
sailors ; and the boldest heart is filled with awe in the for- 
bidding presence of the Lyse Fjord. By many he is 
thought a venturesome captain who will dare take his ves- 
sel through this frowning gateway. 

But after a careful consideration of the topic, it is clear 
that lightning is less to be feared than almost any other of 
the atmospheric phenomena. Comparatively rare are the 
cases where more than one or two persons are killed at 
once. Statistics hitherto collected show that scarcely one 
death in two thousand is occasioned by it. And yet no 
force seems to be so universally feared. Every jieople in 
every age have taken precautions against it, while the hur- 
ricane and the flood pass almost unheeded. 

The ancient Thracians were wont to shoot their arrows 
at the sky during a storm, to remind the fire-gods to be a 
little more careful in their sport. A similar practice is 
found among certain South African tribes : while the 
South Sea Islanders, far more fearless, tell of Ina, a woman 
whom the moon stole for his wife, while she was beating 
bark-cloth. She may be seen in the moon to-day — the 
figure we call the " man in the moon." Continually at 
work, she spreads out her cloth on the sky to dry — 
(clouds) — fastening it down with blue stones, of which 
the sky is built. When done, she gathers it up, throwing 
down the stones, which, falling upon the earth, produce 



ELECTRIC STORMS. 235 

the sound of thunder. The lightning is the torch the 

moon holds to aid her in her work. 

Augustus was wont to retire to a subterranean vault 
during a storm, and it is said the Japanese emperors had 
a similar custom, having the additional precaution of large 
reservoirs of water over the grottos. When away from 
home, Augustus usually wrapped himself in sealskin, be- 
lieved, not only by the Romans, but by many others, to 
be lightning-proof. In some portions of France, the peas- 
ants believe snake skins to be an efficient anti-lightning 
charm. And among not a few of the ancients there was a 
belief prevalent that lightning never injured a person 
in bed. 

In the passage quoted from Byron on the bust of 
Ariosto, allusion is made to the belief that lightning never 
strikes the laurel — plant sacred to Apollo. Firm in this 
opinion, Tiberius, during thunder storms, put on a laurel 
crown; and similar virtue is to-day ascribed by the Chinese 
to peach and mulberry trees. Not a few persons to-day be- 
lieve glass to be a safeguard, and that a person is safe beside 
a closed window. Seamen, and not a few of the peasantry 
of different regions, believe the firing of guns will break 
up a thunder storm. Tolling of church-bells is another 
powerful protection against the fires of the sky, which has 
cost many a bell-ringer his life; a tall steeple being unu- 
sually liable to be struck, and a damp bell-rope forming a 
good conductor. One authority tells us of three hundred 
and eighty-six steeples struck within thirty-three years, 
and one hundred and twenty-one bell-ringers killed. The 
preventive was all right ; but these tollers had sinned 
away all right to protection, and perished as victims of 
Divine wrath, instead of an absurd custom. 

Such are some of the many illusory modes of protection 
invogue in times past, and existing to no small extent in 



236 GREAT DISASTERS. 

the present. Comment upon them is unnecessary. We 
know to-day that the higher objects are most liable to be 
struck, and that metals are the best conductors ; and on 
these facts the whole system of lightning-rod protection is 
based. 

But in regard to even the best conductors, a witty Ger- 
man has found much room for ridicule. " While I am 
writing this, symptoms of dysentery are showing them- 
selves with us in Gottingen. Six persons are said to have 
died of this complaint — that is more than twice as many 
in a few days as the lightning has killed in our town in 
half a century — and yet the public seems remarkably easy 
upon the subject. I do not even find that the cheapest 
dysentery conductors have been resorted to. People still 
go about in light clothing, although the wind is already 
blowing over the stubble, and I have even perceived, 
within the last few days, that some persons sleep with 
open windows, which are very carefully closed during a 
thunder storm, and yet there is not a single instance known 
that lightning has ever made its way through an open 
window, while dysentery very easily strikes into a bed- 
room, particularly when, after a warm day, it makes its 
appearance in company of rain and a cool wind. Is not 
this singular? How would people conduct themselves in 
these days if the dysentery was to rise above the horizon 
in the form of a low black cloud, changing day into twi- 
light, and whenever it selected a victim, explode with a 
violent thunder clap, which made the house shake? I 
believe there would be no end of singing and praying. 
And yet this storm is now impending on our heads — but 
without thunder claps and black clouds, which are, after 
all, only accessories — and we go about our affairs as if 
nothing were happening." 

The fact that objects reaching much above the general 



ELECTRIC STORMS. 23? 

surface are most liable to be struck, places ships at sea in 
a peculiarly dangerous position ; and considering the rela- 
tive number of the two, ships are more frequently struck 
than houses. The packet boat New York, was struck 
some years since : the chain which was attached to the 
mainmast as conductor was entirely volatilized, not being 
large enough to act as conductor. 

The fact that electricity passes most readily from ele- 
vated points, renders the ship the scene of the most beau- 
tiful of the more common electric phenomena. Any one 
who has visited an electric plant knows how sparks and 
flashes of light accumulate on the brushes ; and a similar 
spectacle may at times be seen on the wires of electric lights 
at night. So at sea during cloudy weather, the yards, 
masts, spars and other more prominent points often glow 
with pale lambent flames, of greenish or bluish tint. One 
who clambers up to them may find upon near approach 
that they almost disappear ; while to one a short distance 
away they are as distinct as ever. A hand plunged into 
the flame glows with the same spectral light. This phe- 
nomenon is popularly known among sailors as " St. Elmo's 
fire;" but there is much difference of opinion as to what 
it may forebode. Some sailors believe the ghost of a dead 
comrade is accompanying the ship. Others consider that 
St. Elmo has taken the ship under his protection. A 
more common, and the rational view, is thus given by 
Longfellow : 

" Last night I saw St. Elmo's stars 
With their glimmering lanterns, all at play, 
On the tops of the masts, and the tips of the spars, 
And I knew we should have foul weather to-day. 
Cheerily, my hearties! — yo-heave-oh! 
Brail up the mainsail and let her go, 
As the winds will, and St. Antonio." 

This phenomenon has been noticed from the earliest 



238 GREAT DISASTERS. 

times. Shakespeare wrote three centuries ago, in "The 
Tempest : " 

Prospero. — " Hast thou, spirit. 

Performed, to point the tempest that I bid thee ?" 

Ariel. — "To every article. 

I boarded the King's ship: now on the beak, 
Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin, 
I flamed amazement : sometimes I'd divide, 
And burn in many places : on the topmast, 
The yards and bowsprit would I flame distinctly ; 
Then meet and join." 

When Lysander was about to set sail from Lampsacus to 
attack the Athenian fleet, " Castor and Pollux" appeared 
upon each side of the Lacedemonian admiral's vessel, 
greatly encouraging him. Such were the names of the 
strange lights among the ancients : and ever and anon we 
find record of their appearance. 

This title needs explanation. This peculiar halo is not 
con fined to the sea, nor to inanimate objects. The electric 
aureole has been frequently observed upon persons, and 
has always been considered a good omen. The Spartan 
Gylippus on his march to raise the siege of Syracuse, saw 
a star upon his lance and rejoiced at the token of divine 
favor. Nearly every tyro in Latin is familiar with the 
tale that Servius Tullius, when a child, was found asleep 
in his cradle with flames playing about him, and was 
in consequence educated like a prince, and became king of 
Rome. Stories of halos about Constantine the Great, and 
the Visigoth emperor Wamba, are also told. It is said 
that during Caesar's African war, flames sprang from the 
standards of the fifth legion during a stormy night: and 
at a time when Rome, almost in despair at the triumphs 
of Carthage and the death of two Scipios in Spain, was 
seriously meditating the abandonment of the contest, Lu- 
cius Marcius ventured upon a harangue to encourage the 
dispirited legions. While he spoke, a flame rested upon 



ELECTRIC STORMS. 239 

his helmet. Housed by the wonderful mark of divine 
favor, the Romans went forth yet again, and gained one of 
their greatest victories. What might have been the fate 
of the world if Carthage, not Rome, had prevailed ? Who 
• dare assert that an electric flame has not changed the des- 
tinies of the universe ? 

But the earliest story of this sort comes from the famed 
expedition of the Argo, in search of the Golden Fleece. 
During a fearful storm Orpheus invoked the gods of Sam- 
othracia; and immediately divine lights appeared upon 
the heads of Castor and Pollux, two members of the party, 
and the storm ceased. So after death the two mythical 
heroes were promoted a place among the demi-gods, and 
became the especial patrons of sailors : and the strange 
lights on shipboard were supposed to indicate their pres- 
ence. A single light, however, was supposed to bode evil, 
and to be the work of the mischief-making Helena. 

Since the extension of travel and scientific research, 
this phenomenon has been so frequently observed as to be 
no longer considered remarkable ; and it is supposed to be 
due to electric clouds or currents coining in direct contact 
with objects, so that instead of the flash of lightning from 
a distance, there is a steady discharge, often with some 
hissing or crackling sound, noticeable at the brushes of 
any electric machine ; in fact, the noise is seldom absent. 
It almost invariably appears before or after a thunder 
storm : and has hardly ever been observed during one. 
To this same cause must be attributed the occasional show- 
ers of luminous rain and dust. 

But no amount of science can rob such appearances of 
their terrors for the uninitiated. Of scores of instances 
we might name, a single one will suffice. Prof. Siemens 
tells of an unusual electric disturbance during a Khamsin, 
while his party and his Arab guides were upon the summit 



240 GREAT DISASTERS. 

of the great pyramid. Hearing a hissing noise as the 
wind rose, he at length concluded it must be due to elec- 
tricity : and " holding up a full wine-bottle, the head of 
which was coated with tin foil," the same hissing was in- 
creased. The bottle was then wrapped with moist paper, to. 
increase its capacity. Even before this, a severe shock 
could be obtained from the head of the bottle. 

"The Arabs, who for some time had been looking on 
with astonishment at our proceedings, came to the conclu- 
sion that we were practicing magic, and insisted upon our 
leaving the pyramid. Their remonstrances being of no 
avail, they now wanted to use the right of the stronger, 
and to make us descend by force. I retreated to the 
highest stone block and loaded my bottle as strongly as 
possible, while the leader of the Arabs seized me by the 
other hand and was endeavoring to drag me down. At 
this critical moment, I touched him with the neck of the 
bottle, and the effects of the shock it produced were such 
as to surpass my keenest expectations. The son of the 
desert, whose nerves had never before felt a similar com- 
motion, fell flat down upon the ground, as if struck by 
lightning ; and then springing up with a dreadful howl, 
soon vanished out of sight, followed by all his comrades." 

These cases of halos and electric aureoles thus far men- 
tioned, have clearly played a far more important part in 
the history of nations than the more frequently occurring 
lightning stroke, merely because of the wonderful hold 
they have had upon the superstitious tendency of man. 
Leave Servius Tullius out of the history of Rome, or leave 
out the speech and aureole of Marcius, and who can say 
how different the face of the earth might be ? 

More frequently observed, and because of its frequency, 
comparatively unheeded in northern climes, is the aurora, 
which in the temperate zone has frequently inspired terror 



ELECTRIC STORMS. 241 

equal to the earthquake, though absolutely harmless. The 
writer recalls that a bright aurora uot so very many years 
ago caused not a few suj>erstitious folk to believe the end 
of the world was at hand. They believed the red stream- 
ers to be the chariot of fire in which the Lord was speed- 
ing earthward. This was the great aurora of September 
3, 1859, which was visible from the United States to 
Siberia, from the Cape of Good Hope and Australia to 
the north of Europe. It was the most tremendous ever 
known, and well calculated to terrify the superstitious.* 

Humboldt, and others since, have supposed the aurora 
to be light emitted by the earth itself; but to-day its elec- 
tric character is proven beyond a doubt. Electric dis- 
charges passed through a tube containing greatly rarefied 
dry air produce the same effect on a small scale ; and 
every aurora produces a powerful disturbance of magnetic 
instruments. In most cases, they are attended by a hiss- 
ing, crackling noise : so the Siberians are wont to say that 
" the raging host is passing." 

We find occasional references to the aurora among 
ancient writers, but little attempt to explain it. So we 
have even few myths, it not being common enough in 
warmer climes to hold a place in popular tales. But in 
Iceland, and more northern regions, it is of constant and 
brilliant occurrence, merely because it requires dry air, 
and the coldest air is the driest. So among Scandinavian 
races appears the myth embodied by Longfellow in the 
"Saga of King Olaf." The war god, Thor, speaks: 



*And even so late as 1872, the brilliant aurora which was seen as far 
south as Alexandria, was believed by the intelligent Parisians to forebode 
terrible wars, and the speedy overthrow of the hated Germans, who had 
so lately trampled their capital and their pride. And in earlier days the 
northern light had been deemed the harbinger of war, famine or pestilence. 



16 



242 GREAT DISASTERS. 

••The light thou In 

Stream through thf- be;< 
In fla-h*-f- of crimson, 
Jr but my r'-d beard, 
Blown by the night wind, 
Affrighting the nations." 

And Scott has told ns of the belief in Scotland and the 
northern isles, of spirits abroad in the upper air: 

: The monk gaz<-d long on the lovely moon, 
Then into the night he looked forth : 
.And red and bright, the Streamers light, 
Were dancing in the glowing north. 
Ho had be -'-en. in fair Castile, 
The youth in glittering squadrons start, 
Sodden the flying jennet wheel, 
And hurl the unexpected dart. 
J/e knew by the streams that shot so bright. 
That. Spirit! were riding the Northern light." 

The light emitted by the aurora varies much in inten- 
sity. Ordinarily it is not, greater than that of the moon 
in her first quarter; hula few instances are recorded where 
it was powerful enough to make itself perceptible by day; 
and on one occasion it wai strong enough ai night to cast 
a shadow in the midst of a Newfoundland fog. As the 
phenomenon has been carefully studied only within a 
century, it is not. safe to affirm with certainty what records 
of the past three hundred years have induced many to 
believe; that it is of special frequency at periods of one 
hundred and fifty years. This can only apply to the tem- 
perate zones; for in the polar world it in to ho noon on 
almost <-v<-ry clear -till night. 

M. Martins has given us a striking picture of the 
auroras. "At times they are simple diffused gleam 
luminous patches ; ;it others, quivering rays of pure white 
which run across the sky, starting from the horizon as if 
;oj invisible pencil were being drawn over the celestial 
vault. At times it. -top- in it- course: the incomplete rays 



FLFCTKir STORMS. 



243 







& tass?s 











hill 






~v 







i v\n OF rilK U'ROR v 



244 GREAT DISASTERS. 

do not reach the zenith, but the aurora continues at some 
other point ; a bouquet of rays darts forth, spreads out into 
a fan, then becomes pale and dies out. At other times 
long golden draperies float above the head of the spectator, 
and take a thousand folds and undulations, as if agitated 
by the wind. They appear to be at but a slight elevation 
in the atmosphere, and it seems strange that the rustling 
of the folds, as they double back on each other, is not 
audible. Generally a luminous bow is seen in the north ; a 
black segment separates it from the horizon, its dark color 
forming a contrast with the pure white or red of the bow, 
which darts forth the rays, extends, becomes divided, and 
soon presents the appearance of a luminous fan, which fills 
the northern sky, and mounts nearly to the zenith, where 
the rays, uniting, form a crown, which in its turn, darts forth 
luminous jets in all directions. The sky then looks like 
a cupola of fire : blue, green, red, yellow and white vibrate 
in the palpitating rays of the aurora. But this brilliant 
spectacle lasts only a few minutes ; the crown first ceases to 
emit luminous jets, and then gradually dies out ; a diffuse 
light fills the sky ; here and there a few luminous patches, 
resembling light clouds, open and close with an incredible 
rapidity, like a heart that is beating very fast. They soon 
get pale in their turn ; everything fades away and becomes 
confused ; the aurora seems to be in its death-throes ; the 
stars, which its light had obscured, shine with a renewed 
brightness; and the long polar night, sombre and pro- 
found, again assumes its sway over the icy solitudes of 
earth and ocean." 

In the presence of such brilliancy and beauty, both poet 
and artist may despair. It may be copied only by the 
master hand that sent it flaming through the heavens. 
There is naught under the sun whereunto to liken it, and 
it is the electric flash which men may least fear ; and yet> 



ELECTRIC STOI: 245 

even it has wrought evil at times ; for its magnetic power 
disturbs the compass; and the electric storms it betokens 
have more than once in the past caused electric wires to 
set objects near them on fire. I well remember the pow- 
erful electric disturbances that attended a magnificent 
aurora in 1884, which was visible as far as southern 
Arkansas. Depots were fired in many places by electric 
switch-boards ; one in Pennsylvania taking fire four til 
During this electric storm, telegraphs and telephones were 
temporarily useless. 

Such are the phenomena presented in the atmosphere by 
this most mysterious power. Dreadful in the lightning's 
leap, strange and uncanny in the aureole's glow, wildly 
and weirdly beautiful in the flickering flash and flow of 
the Northern Light, we have seen that, though it has 
played an important part in the history of the world 
because of its appeal to man's superstition, it is notwith- 
standing the occasional bolt of death, to be considered, 
while one of the most powerful and universal, one of the 
I to be feared of all the forces of nature ; and is prac- 
ticably responsible for few great disasters. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

RAIN, HAIL AND SNOW. 

" I bring fresh showers for the thirsty flowers, v 

From the seas and the streams, 
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid 

In their noonday dreams. 
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken 

The sweet birds every one, 
When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, 

As she dances about the sun. 
I wield the flail of the lashing hail, 

And whiten the green plains under. 
And then again I dissolve in rain, 

And laugh as I pass in thunder. 

I am the daughter of earth and water, 

And the nursling of the sky, 
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores, 

I change, but I can not die. 
For after the rain, when with never a stain 

The pavilion of heaven is bare, 
And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams, 

Build up the blue dome of air, 
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, 

And out of the caverns of rain, 
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, 

I arise and unbuild it again." 

'T^HE cloud is well worth Shelley's admiration; for 
J- though it be but a vague oppressive mist when it 
enwraps, yet afar it assumes either beauty or gloom, as its 
seeming whims may dictate. Few are they who have never 
paused in silent admiration of some beautiful fleecy spirit 
of the upper deep, changing every instant like the shifting 
figures of a kaleidoscope, or presenting fantastic likenesses 
of natural objects, or ever and anon presenting pictures of 
strange monsters, such as only the superstitious and timid 



RAIN, HAIL AND SNOW. 247 

can imagine. Often in times past have nations stood 
aghast at the portentous signs observed in season of some 
great calamity. A lurid beam of light from the hidden 
sun, darting through a rift in the clouds, has been reported 
as a flaming sword. Shortly before the destruction of 
Jerusalem, the sky was filled with horses and chariots, 
rushing to battle. After the siege the wretched survivors 
recognized too late what was the purpose of the warning. 
Wordsworth speaks of these bizarre fantasies : 

"Lo! in the burning west the craggy nape 
Of a proud Ararat ! and thereupon, 
The Ark, her melancholy voyage done. 
Yon rampant cloud mimics a lion's shape, 
There combats a huge crocodile — agape, 
A golden spear to swallow! and that brown 
And mossy grove, so near yon blazing town, 
Stirs and recedes — destruction to escape, 
Yet all is harmless— as the Elysian shades 
Where spirits dwell in undisturbed repose, 
Silently disappear and quickly fades, 
Meek Nature's evening comment on the shows 
That for oblivion take their daily birth 
From all the fuming vanities of Earth." 

And naught can present so sombre and terrifying an 
aspect as those phantoms of the air, when mailed with the 
lightning and flying with the storm. 

Yet, upon the cloud the welfare of the human race is 
dependent, as much as upon any other force in nature : 
for rain or drouth, famine or plenty, snow or flood, all 
follow in its path. More than once has rain or storm de- 
cided the destiny of nations. Far different might our own 
lot have been, if that bitter storm of Christmas night, 1777, 
had not given Washington an opportunity of surprising 
the carousing Hessians in Trenton, and so reviving the 
drooping spirits of his countrymen. Hardly would he 
have escaped, but that the sudden frost hardened the 
ground and enabled him to steal away by night with his 



248 GEfiAT DtSASTEBg. 

artillery, leaving the chafing Cornwallis the privilege of 
attacking the deserted camp on the Assanpink in the morn- 
ing. It was a winter storm that enabled the bold Ver- 
monters to surprise the frowning fortress on the upper Hud- 
son. Napoleon could invade Russia, and drive the Cossack 
pell-mell before him ; no mortal power could control the 
elements ; and his splendid hosts melted away like snow in 
the breath of the icy storm ; and once more the Cossack 
sang to his steed : 

" Now fiercely neigh, my gallant gray ; thy breast is broad 
and ample. 
Thy hoofs shall prance o'er the fields of France and the pride 
of her heroes trample." 

Again the " Man of Destiny " was conquered by the 
elements. 

" There was a sound of revelry by night" 

as the dread combat of Waterloo prepared. The plan of 
the " Genius of War " was superb. But all his contests 
were problems of artillery. " The Lord is on the side of 
the strongest battalions and heaviest artillery" — bold 
manner of saying that " when one seeks for the reason of 
the successes of great generals, one is surprised to find that 
they did everything necessary to insure them." But he 
who would insure success must have the clouds at his beck. 
That night it rained. The mud crippled his artillery and 
left the contest to the rifle and bayonet. Waterloo was 
lost. A shower of rain changed the face of Europe — 
the history of the world. 

Scriptural narrative and the sage Josephus tell us how 
the Philistine host were cut down by the motley rabble of 
almost unarmed Israelites, routed mainly by a terrific 
thunder storm that beat in their faces, flamed upon their 
weapons, and transformed the disciplined army into a 
panic-stricken multitude. What might have been the 
future of Isnel and the Jewish faith, but for the inter- 



RAIN, HAIL AND SNOW. 



249 



vention of that storm? We need not multiply instances. 
The causes that produce the different phenomena of 




condensation in rain, hail and snow, are not known. 
Rainfall is the most indefinite of all the atmospheric phe- 



250 GREAT DISASTERS. 

nomena in location, quantity, frequency, and distribution. 
The winds do not vary greatly, one year with another ; 
but such is not the case with the rain. Sometimes the 
condensation is slow and the moisture falls on the earth as 
mist. Some suppose that the rainfall is due merely to the 
cold of great elevations : and this would seem to be well 
supported by the prevalence of fogs on the Newfoundland 
banks, where the constant cold current and the occasional 
icebergs produce a similar degree of cold at sea level, con- 
densing the moisture from the warm seas southward. 
Others urge that two masses of saturated air of different 
temperature combine, necessarily condensing the surplus ; 
and the Newfoundland banks are again referred to as an 
illustration. 

Light on fog-banks often presents peculiar and beauti- 
ful illusions. The writer remembers having seen a whole 
town apparently wrapped in flames, the effect being pro- 
duced by the lights from many windows shining through 
a light mist that was curling and twisting before a light 
breeze. Similar causes produce the peculiar halos and 
mock-suns and mock-moons not infrequently seen in the 
sky. These, and the beautiful rainbow, all depend upon 
the reflection and refraction of light in passing through 
vapor masses. These curious spectacles once had no little 
terror for the ignorant and superstitious. Shakespeare 
doubtless alludes to some such case in the dialogue 
between Hubert and King John, making Hubert narrate 
an exaggerated version of the facts, as the superstitiously 
inclined rabble reported it : 

Hubert.—" My lord, they say five moons were seen to-night; 
Four fixed ; and the fifth did whirl about 
The other four with wondrous motion." 

King John. — " Five moons ? " 

Hubert. — " Old men and beldams in the streets 
Do prophecy upon it dangerously ; 

Yonncr Arthur's death is common in thpir months " 



RAIN, HAIL AND SNOW. 251 

Sometimes an appearance more terrifying to the unini- 
tiated is seen. The traveler in Germany may hear strange 
myths of specters that frequent the mountains. It was 
long said that spirits dwelt on the summit of the Matter- 
horn. Gigantic phantoms roamed the Harz Mountains. 
One of the best known of all these apparitions is the 
famous " Specter of the Brocken." The wanderer on the 
lonely height at sunrise may see upon a neighboring sum- 
mit a gigantic shadowy figure, moving about, and mimick- 
ing every motion of the traveler. Of course, it is but his 
shadow on a neighboring fog-bank ; but the solution re- 
mained a mystery long enough to terrify many a simple 
peasant into needless invocations of the saints. But simi- 
lar appearances are occasionally observable in many local- 
ities. The Spaniard Ulloa records that on the mountain 
Pambamarca, in Peru, he saw his shadow on the cloud sur- 
rounded by three complete circular rainbows. The same 
peculiarity has been frequently noticed elsewhere, but 
never on so grand a scale. We find no peculiar myths 
concerning halos in general, it being generally considered 
that they announce the approach of rain ; and the fog- 
bank is of no especial danger save to the seaman, or the 
traveler overtaken and blinded by one in mountain fast- 
nesses ; though their depressing influence has led one 
writer to exclaim : 

"Fly, fly, profane fogs! fly hence far away, 
Taint not the pure springs of the springing day 
With your dull influence ; it is for you 
To sit and scowl upon night's heavy hrow." 

And the fog, though not ornamental — unless we except 
that dry haze, the Indian summer — may be useful in pre- 
venting a frost, or in keeping a parched earth from drying 
too rapidly. But for this last, all the world prefers the 
rain, and sings with Longfellow: 



252 



GREAT DISASTERS. 




HAIN, HAIL AXD SNOW. 253 

" How beautiful is the rain ! 
After the dust and heat. 
In the broad and fiery street, 
In the narrow lane. 
How beautiful is the rain ! 
How it clatters along the roofs 
Like the tramp of hoofs! 
How it gushes and struggles out. 
From the throat of the overflowing spout. 
Across the window pane it pours and pours, 
And swift and wide, 
With a muddy tide, 
Like a river, down the gutter roars 
The rain, the welcome rain." 

Not always welcome; for we find the same poet moan- 
ing: 

'• The day is cold, and dark, and dreary. 
It rains, and the rain is never weary." 

And certainly, the farmer who looks through the driving 
rain at his ruined crops has little sentiment left to expend 
upon its beauty. But the world over, after a rain every 
feature of a landscape stands out with singular clearness : 
the haze commonly prevalent has for the nonce disap- 
peared. 

The amount of rainfall varies so vastly in different 
countries, that it would be tedious to the reader to enter 
upon a detail of the different amounts. In general it is 
greatest upon those portions of the land first reached by 
regular incoming sea winds. So in South America, Peru 
and southern Ecuador are practically without rain, as the 
Andes and the Amazon forests deprive the trade winds of 
their moisture ere they reach the Pacific coast; while 
southern Chili seldom sees the sun ; lying in the track of 
the return trades, whose moisture is at once precipitated by 
the Andes. So in India the monsoon which pours deluges 
of water along the southwestern coasts, brings but twenty- 
three inches a year to the central plateau ; and by the 
time Central Asia is reached, it is so dry the steppes of 



254 GREAT DISASTERS. 

Tartary must remain almost a desert. And in our own 
land, we find in general the heaviest rain from the eastern 
coast to the central region: while the western plateau 
along the eastern slopes of the Rockies is unusually dry, 
and liable to p v otracted drouths : and in the Mojave desert, 
and in southeastern California, the rainfall is less than 
two inches per year. On the North Pacific coast the rain- 
fall increases rapidly, as in the southern Andes ; but in 
general our highest mean rainfall is in the southern por- 
tion of the Gulf States. The highest average in the world 
is so far credited to Sumatra, one hundred and thirty 
inches. This, of course, refers to tracts of considerable 
size; for a small tract in Assam, on a mountain slope, 
where is the town of Cherrapungee, has a rainfall of four 
hundred and ninety-three and two-tenth inches per an- 
num — more than forty-one feet ! Twenty-two feet of rain 
have fallen there in a single month! A better idea of 
this may be obtained by observing that our average rain- 
fall, from Missouri eastward, is about three feet a year. 
The rains of the Amazon and Congo basins are enormous, 
and would suffice to swell our Mississippi to as great vol- 
ume as either of them. On the other hand, the lowest 
recorded rainfall for a large tract is that of Greenland — 
fifteen and five-tenth inches ; while Australia, with fif- 
teen and seven-tenth inches, is but little better off. It 
may be mentioned here, that the term " mean rainfall " 
includes snow also: ten inches of snow being ordinarily 
estimated as one inch of rain. 

A point long mooted, now considered as definitely settled, 
was, the influence of forests upon rainfall. There was no 
doubt that forests retarded the descent of water into the 
streams, and so lessened the danger of floods ; and obser- 
vations of late years has shown that the forest also increases 
the amount of rainfall, aiding in the work of condensa- 



RAIN, HAIL AND SNOW. 255 

tion. In the northern lumber regions, the rainfall in the 
cleared tracts is less than in the time of the forests, while 
floods are more sudden and dangerous. 

These general features being noticed, mention of a few 
extraordinary rainfalls may be of interest. The most re- 
markable rain in one day occurred September 13, 1879, at 
Purneah, in Bengal, when thirty-five inches fell ; about 
as much as Illinois gets in a year. At Nagina, thirty-two 
and four-tenth inches fell. Some extraordinary showers 
have been recorded in our own country, the most rapid 
being one and one-half inches in five minutes : the most 
rapid long one, ten inches in three hours ; but no record 
of a day in anywise approaches the Bengal rain. 

A peculiar phenomenon of occasional occurrence in the 
Western States is that of " cloud-bursts," or "water-spouts" 
as they are sometimes called, when immense masses of 
water fall in a few minutes. As the entire amount of 
moisture that can be held by the atmosphere at ordinary 
temperature would make but two inches of rain, it must 
follow that to produce such downpours as are here re- 
corded, immense quantities of moisture from a wide area 
must be drawn in and condensed rapidly at a single point. 
Perhaps this is done by a reverse cyclonic movement, the 
atmosphere rapidly descending in a " spout," instead of 
ascending. 

August 11, 1876, a tremendous downpour occurred at 
Fort Sully, Dakota: "and on the opposite side of the 
Missouri River, the water draining from a canon was re- 
ported to have moved out in a solid bank three feet deep 
and two hundred feet wide." Two others of nearly equal 
violence occurred during the same month : one in Utah, 
and one in Kansas. " June 12, 1879, on Beaver Creek, 
ninety miles south of Dead wood, Dakota, there was a cloud- 
burst, which, without a gradual rise of water, in a few 



256 GREAT DISASTERS. 

minutes covered the country and drowned eleven persons.'' 
A cloud-burst in June, 1884, sent a torrent eight feet deep 
from the hillside into Jefferson, Montana, drowning several 
persons. Another one in June, 1885, destroyed a town in 
Mexico, drowning over one hundred and seventy of its eight 
hundred inhabitants. Cloud-bursts near Pittsburg, on the 
night of July 25, 1874, destroyed $500,000 worth of prop- 
erty, and drowned or crushed in the wrecks, one hundred 
and thirty-four persons. A cloud-burst in Arizona, 
August 6, 1881, changed the Hassayampa River from a dry 
ravine at sunset to a river a mile wide and from two to fif- 
teen feet deep by 11 p. m.; by noon next day the river 
was again dry. Two days later a downpour at Central 
City, Colorado, suddenly left from four to six feet of water 
in the two principal streets. 

Snow is practically unknown over two-thirds of the land 
surface of the earth, and the damage done by it is confined 
largely to the inland regions of the temperate zone. And 
even then heavy snowfalls do no great injury unless fol- 
lowed by extremely cold wind. The blizzard laden with 
" icy sand " is fearful. 

" The night sets in on a world of snow, 
And the air grows sharp and chill, 
And the warning roar of a fearful blow 
Is heard on the distant hill. 

And the Norther! See! On the mountain peak, 
In his breath, how the old trees writhe and shriek! 
He shouts on the plains, Ho-ho! Ho-ho! 
He drives from his nostrils the blinding snow, 
And growls with a savage will." 

The extreme ranges of temperature produced suddenly 
by high area or anti-cyclonic storms are the most danger- 
ous features of the blizzard ; while the only damage done 
by snow is to blind the person caught away from home, 
and cause him to lose his way. The past ten years have 
been marked by severe storms in our own winter season, 



RAJS, HAIX A 257 

the n 11, 1888, v 

l thirty to fifty miles an hour. 
lar^e numb 

thou : cattle Ton tana, the 

ther. fell fifb in four and one-half 1. 

w-laden wind reached I of forty miles 

hour at Gal tem- 

pera' . forty degrees in eight boon . nth- 

later came an exceedingly heavy snow attended by high 
winds, in the eastern Middle 6 pularly 

: blizzard" 9 drifted in 

many places ten or fifteen feet dee 

■ - 

1 :.-. -■-■■ : - ', o ■' ■-. \ '.: •-. •: - -j . ii -i : :. ~ - -..-:.- i".l-.. 
The haystack, had grown to a mountain lift, 
A-.: :i~ ---.--. 1: :> '.:■.:-<-.-': '..■:-. i :.-. ■ - -:ro . -. -;r\:': 
A= it lay by the farmer's door." 

T damage in all snowstorms results from the 

temporary obstruction of roads and cessation of business. 
:ction of human li: Lted, 

of armies overtaken by the storm. > 
our hundred and fifty thousand men on 
expedition. Both armies suffered terribly in the recent 
jo-I war, as they lay feeing each other at 

Shipka Pass. 

The constant accumulation derregi 

of the earth produce i -e known as 

glaciers, the fragments breaking from which as tL 

These, borne by cur: 
to the southward, have no small influence in modifying 
the climate. In mountainous regions the accumulations 
produce - and avalanches; but 

owing to their entirely local character, the dam g ight 

by th omparatively insignificant, not even approach- 

ing the lightning in the totaL 



258 GREAT DISASTERS. 

Hail has been far more destructive. As stated else- 
where, the cause of hail is hitherto unexplained. The 
storm usually travels in narrow belts. Many are the 
wonderful tales told of it. It is said that May 8, 1802, a 
mass of ice weighing eleven hundred pounds fell in Hun- 
gary. Again, we hear of an ice-block the size of an ele- 
phant, which fell near Seringapatam, in the reign of Tippoo 
Sahib. The good father Hue, in his travels in Tartary, 
reported the fall of an ice-block the size of a millstone, 
which, in very warm weather, required three days to melt- 
And we are told that in the time of Charlemagne, there 
fell hailstones fifteen feet long, eleven feet wide and six 
feet thick. All these we steadfastly do not believe. 

Yet, there are well authenticated records of many disas- 
trous hail storms and enormous hailstones. A storm in 
France, in 1788, traveled in two bands : one, four hundred 
and twenty by ten miles ; the other, five hundred by 
five miles. Five million dollars worth of property was 
destroyed. In 1865 a severe storm swept a wide path 
from Bordeaux to Belgium, accumulating in such masses 
that it was not all melted in one or two localities for four 
days. One bed was one and one-fourth miles long and 
two-fifths of a mile wide, containing twenty-one million 
cubic feet. Doubtless similar accumulations in depres- 
sions, adhering together, gave rise to the tales of enormous 
blocks mentioned above. 

An enormous hail storm in India, in 1853, is said to 
have killed eighty-four persons and three thousand cattle. 
During a storm at Naini Tal, in 1855, hailstones weighing 
one and one-half pounds fell. Our own land has had a 
number of severe hail storms within the past ten years, 
that have done immense damage to crops, and occasionally 
killed cattle, while smaller animals have perished by hun- 
dreds. Frequent are the records of hailstones as large as 



RAIN, HAIL AND SNOW. 259 

oranges, goose-eggs, and occasionally as large as a fist, 
with gathered drifts two or three feet deep. Europe has 
also had several of her smaller towns nearly destroyed by 
combined flood and hail. Yet, none of these equal in 
fatality the great hail storm of two years since at Morada- 
bad, India. 

It smashed in windows, glass doors and the lighter roofs, 
" The verandas were blown away by the wind. A great 
part of the roof fell in, and the massive pucca portico was 
blown down. The walls shook. It was nearly dark out- 
side, and hailstones of enormous size were dashed down 
with a force which I have never seen anything to equal. 
* * * There were long ridges of hail one or two feet 
in depth. * * * Not a house in the civil station that 
did not receive the most serious injury. 

" Two hundred and thirty deaths in all have been re- 
ported up to the present time. The total number may be 
safely put as under two hundred and fifty. Men caught 
in the open and without shelter, were simply pounded to 
death by the hail." 

Spain and southern France have on record some showers 
of extremely large hailstones. In 1829, masses of ice 
weighing four and one-half pounds fell at Cazorta, Spain. 
Houses were stove-in by them. During a hurricane in 
the south of France, in 1844, there fell ice-masses weighing 
eleven pounds. 

Mysterious and ominous to those ignorant of their cause 
have been the many showers of " ink, blood, sulphur," 
falls of red or green snow, and similar phenomena. Such 
things were believed to betoken the wrath of God, and to 
forebode war, famine, pestilence, flood, and other dire 
calamities. Of course, the good people knew exactly 
what any shower meant — after the calamity occurred. 
When it didn't occur, the shower was simply a warning. 



260 GREAT DISASTERS. 

That such phenomena are readily explained goes with- 
out saying ; and not a few of the wise of days past have 
refused to be seriously alarmed, though they could not 
find a correct solution of the mystery. Some of the philo- 
sophic minds of other days endeavored to explain these 
occurrences by supposing blood vaporized from battle- 
fields was mingled with rain, not knowing that the red 
portion of the blood can not evaporate. 

The microscope has solved these mysteries. The rains 
of blood are merely stained by earthy matter : sometimes 
organic, gathered by the wind ; sometimes volcanic dust, 
thrown out by eruptions ; and in one case, where numerous 
blood-spots appeared on houses and fences in Provence, in 
1608, and the priests asserted it was the work of the devil, 
the spots at length proved to be the excrement of butterflies. 
Rains of melted sulphur have been found to owe their color 
to the yellow pollen of pine trees. Ink is merely sooty rain- 
water. Showers of this character are more frequent than 
might be supposed. More than a score have occurred in 
Europe in the present century ; and a number in this coun- 
try. Red and green snow owe their color to microscopic 
vegetable life, and are quite commonly met with in the 
Arctic world. One bold headland has long been known as 
Crimson Cliff, from the' extensive deposits of red snow 
there. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

FLOODS IN" THE SOUTH. 

"'Mother dear, the water's coming after! 
Mother, 'tis between us and the hill! ' 
Looking down, they see the flood, with laughter 
Lapping idly 'neath the window sill. 
****** 

' Mother, in the water we are wading! 

Mother, it grows deeper as we go ! ' 
'Hasten, children! hasten — day is fading! ' 

Higher creeps the river, black and slow. 
****** 

' Mother, 'tis so deep, and we are dripping! 

Mother, we are sinking! Haste, oh haste!'' 
In her arms uplifting them and gripping, 
On she plunges, wading to the waist. 
****** 

Flowers the river snatches, while it calls so — 
Flowers its lean hands never snatched before, 

Will it snatch these human flowers also, 
Where they cling, sad creatures of the shore ? " 

<Tj\ VERY country is confronted with a serious problem 
-l-{ in its great rivers. In some lands the only problem 
is, how to get rid of flood- water as quickly as possible : in 
others, comes the additional question of securing sufficient 
water for irrigation during the dry season. Egypt occu- 
pies an anomalous position, the latter question being the 
the only one of any practical interest. Without rains, she 
depends on the rise of the Nile for her existence, and no 
one dreams of such a thing as endeavoring to check the 
overflow. During seed-time the fellaheen may be seen 
sometimes in mud knee-deep, busily planting their fields ; 
and in summer they may be seen hoisting water from 

261 



wK. ASTERS. 

die strv. br irrigating ditches. 

In need ofirri- 

r of a 
I regions - stern s 

2 :di both sides of the 
itore has 

pass 5 in die first. In most 

- the chief one. Tlie 

A;... v. ::;•;■.: : ; .-...-; ::>-;s ::;:v. ?:\:v :; ;::•„ :/.:;...:-;•/: :", •;:. 

But since die 

- uniiih:. 

_ s . ;>ple. 

- - - _ - - i level i _ 

.:• tribu:. 

- 

. Missouri pre- 

" ich lie in 

_ snows fell g - able part 

_ - sol the oen 

— stern 1 

:a — must find their 

■ of die si _ le strt am. Bv ri 
• • • 

he melted snows 
- : er river in ] 

■rer. But it 
snaUy ] 

- in in :. .mains verv 

- i " 

" " rains are [ I 

- I Lis the cans I 

■ . . 

- - - s 3 it has hithertc 

[ > no4 seem :: be ^nr nearer a 



FL H. 

practical solution of t; em than "when it i 

spends niii!. "ear in 

tally f confine 

-,nks, and so avoid the perils which 
i injr threaten an area larger than a . _ and 

and 

The wonderful and often terrible changes that come 
with the ch season, and which produce such er 

ly inconceivable to one 
who has not seen theiu. That a stream so quiet and com- 
pare . :>uld 
me a raging torre: enty miles av- _ Mth, 
and t . depth from shore to shore, throughout 
the eleven hundred miles from Cairo to the sea. is simply 
incredible until one has seen it. T . . ~ r, did 
that in 1882, when the gr . eral overflow occurred. 
Unnumbered 1: _ .at year, and the dama_ 
property was never even estimated. Details w ere hard to 
get when communication was so nearlv a 

* 

was; and after the floods vr r, no efl 

reckon the extent of the disaster. 

Since that spring the reports have not indicated any 
flood equal to the present one: and the only reason why 
this year has not proved as di- - 3 1882 - that the 

levees have been strengthened since then. T. .low- 

ever, that the levee - ias - whole. - -rully 

withstood the pressure of the highest water kno»v: 
many years, is by no means as i ssuiing - - 
first consideration: for there is grave reason to believe 
that the levees themselves serve to increase the very dan- 
ger against which they are a guard. 

The planters of the earlier days made efforts to pr; 
themselves by means of "levees:" a nam< given by the 



264 



GREAT DTSASTEES 



.■" ' ' ,,. '"■■"•:;: ;.ij^jl'i:'! : !i''ii..!i|.i") ~ 




FLOODS IN THE SOUTH. 265 

French io dykes, or artificial banks, and meaning simply 
"raised places." But of later years, both state and national 
resources have been spent freely in endeavoring to curb 
the restless giant. More than $25,000,000 has been spent 
in this way since the war. The Mississippi River Com- 
mission, organized in 1879, under the supervision of the 
War Department, as the Signal Service has been, had 
nominally in view the increasing of facilities for naviga- 
tion ; but as the methods employed for the two objects 
have necessarily been much the same, no little has been 
done for protection. 

The character of the lower Mississippi and its valley 
gravely increase the difficulties of the case. Its bed has 
been worn for ages through a somewhat elevated region, 
and at present the resultant valley has a width varying 
from twenty to one hundred and fifty miles. The result 
has been that the channel of the river shifts continually, 
and is extremely crooked, literally turning time and again 
to every conceivable point of the compass. These curves 
present the most vexatious features the levee system must 
contend with ; for it is easily perceived that the levee on 
the convex side of the bend in the river has the current 
directed full against it, adding the great eroding power of 
the water to the weight it must sustain. 

"The levees are relied on as the chief aid to the work 
of the commission, but the commission does not construct 
them, or even work directly to strengthen them. These 
levees are nothing more than artificial banks or heaps of 
soil shoveled up along the line of the natural banks. The 
commission is working to narrow the wide places in the 
river, so as to secure a uniform width of three thousand feet. 
This is done by constructing revetments, consisting princi- 
pally of mattrasses of wire and brush, which are secured by 
rubble-stone. In other places great quantities of stone are 



266 



GREAT DISASTERS. 




FLOODS IN THE SOUTH. 267 

dumped, and various similar means are used to encourage 
the scour in the shallower parts of the river, and also to 
prevent the undermining of the natural or artificial banks. 

"On a convex shore, where the water is shoal, the levee 
has been carried along the river edge as near as possible? 
as there is no danger, under such conditions, of a caving 
bank. Where the bank is liable to give way, the levees 
are placed further back, and where a break in the levee 
itself has occurred from the caving of the bank, loops are 
made, joining the two broken parts. It must be borne in 
mind that the banks proper along the river are about forty 
feet high above low water, and as the river rises five to 
seven feet over these banks, the levees are constructed of 
sufficient height to restrain the waters within their proper 
limits. The material is found on the spot, either clay or 
sand, as the case may be. A so-called " muck " ditch a 
few feet wide is dug along the center line of the projected 
levee, down to where the earth is comparatively free from 
all organic matter, such as grass and roots of trees. By this 
method some adhesion to the ground is gained, and the 
artificial construction is not easily swept away. The earth 
is taken from the front of the levee line as near the water 
as the circumstances will permit. Standard levees have a 
" crown," or width at the top, of eight feet, except in the 
case of a very low levee, when the "crown" is not less 
than its height. The side slopes are one vertical to three 
or three and one-half horizontal. Present levees are car- 
ried up from two to three feet above the high-water mark 
of their position." 

The river channel, in general, in the upper danger re- 
gion, adheres to the right side of the valley, and on the 
left the danger lies chiefly at a few points where the bluffs 
recede considerably from the river. Throughout the mid- 
dle and lower flood districts the bends of the stream are 



268 GREAT DISASTERS. 

so numerous and capricious that the danger lies equally 
upon either side of the stream. Hence, the levee system 
is not uniform. The whole alluvial front of the river is 
leveed on the left bank, the principal line extending from 
Horn Lake, just below Memphis, to Vicksburg, covering 
the great Yazoo Basin. On the right bank of the river 
there are four principal sections which are liable to be 
overflowed. The first is known as St. Francis front, which 
runs from Commerce, Missouri, to the St. Francis River. 
The White River front is the second, extending from 
Helena, Arkansas, to the mouth of the White and Arkansas 
Rivers. The third and fourth, known as the Tensas and 
the Atchafalaya fronts, run respectively from the Arkansas 
River to the Red River in Louisiana, and from the Red 
River to New Orleans. The first two sections have re- 
ceived no government work except in limited localities, 
where it was merely incidental to the work of river im- 
provement undertaken by the commission ; and those 
fronts are everywhere exposed to the overflow, except 
where private enterprise has done the work. The Social 
Circle Levee, near Laconia, Arkansas, is an example, and 
a notable one, of what has been done by the residents. 
These uprotected tracts have all been submerged, and the 
low lands turned into an enormous lake. 

The overflow waters that pass over the upper part of 
this section spread over the northeastern part of Arkansas 
as far back as the high ground, reaching their greatest 
width about opposite Memphis, and then pass back into 
the Mississippi by way of the St. Francis River. The 
overflow below Helena is carried back by the White 
River. From Arkansas City down, the river, comprising 
the third and fourth sections, is completely leveed. 

Throughout all the lowland districts are hundreds of 
farms and valuable plantations, the soil being built up by 



FLOODS IN THE SOUTH. 



2«9 



ages of alluvial deposits. Most of the towns are built on 
high ground; there being a few notable exceptions. A 
general flood in this valley means that millions of acres 
of land are submerged, and such crops as are in the fields 
are destroyed. More frequently, the land is flooded just 




STRUGGLE TO HOLD THK LEVEE. 



at planting time, and the land remains wet too long to 
allow certain crops to be planted in season. Thus, the 
water in the flooded districts may abate in time to allow 
a fair cotton crop; while the chance for corn is lost. 
Fences and small outbuildings are floated away, and often 



270 GREAT DISASTERS, 

large numbers of stock are drowned; but, after all, the 
chief damage is usually indirect : the evil of hindrance 
rather than of destruction. Further, the retiring- water 
. s numerous pools and marshes that are rank breeders 
of malaria, adding vastly to the unhealthiness of the 
country. 

In many places there are marshy or timbered tracts 
adjacent to the river that are not available for cultivation. 
In these districts the levees are often erected at the border 
of the cultivable land, so that the river has a large area of 
land over which to spread the surplus water without 
doing any injury. Such areas really aid to reduce the 
high-water level. In some cases, a second or third levee 
is built some hundreds of yards to the rear, to serve as a 
sort of reserve, in case the river break through the first. 

Doubtless the reader has pictured to himself a flooded 
district as something like a stream in a mountain gorge: 
an immense torrent of water rushing at race-horse speed, 
uprooting trees, tearing away huge boulders, sweeping 
away houses in an instant, without a moment's warning, 
and drowning young and old by scores. If such be his 
idea, he will find it necessary to remodel it ; or, rather, to 
cast it away entirely. Let him follow a guide to the scene 
of danger. A great levee, the protection of thousands of 
- of rich lands, and perhaps millions of dollars worth 
of property, is announced unsafe. Sometimes it is decided 
to abandon the river line, weakened for long distances, 
and erect a new levee some hundreds of yards to the rear. 

But if the design be to hold the line already established, 
then the scene is an animated one. All along the narrow 
ridge of earth patrolmen are watching the work at every 
point. Hundreds of men work day and night throwing 
up and strengthening the levees, upon which the salva- 
tion of the district depends. Break after break occurs. 



,d» is th;. 







■ 



272 GREAT DISASTERS. 

and it is as fast mended. The waves caused by the rough 
March winds send great volumes of water splashing over 
the weak embankment, almost washing the men off their 
feet. The work is continued all day, force relieving force 
at night. Thousands of lanterns flashing in the darkness, 
as the men pass to and fro with wheelbarrows filled with 
sacks of earth and lumber, present n scene weird and 
ghostly. At intervals during the right the sound of 
steam whistles tell of some new break, some new danger to 
face and overcome. Often the negroes seem little disposed to 
work, even at good wages, preferring to sit on the levee and 
fish. But when the danger is fully upon them, they can 
work furiously. Sometimes, in leading the forlorn hope, 
some energetic old fellow may shout to his terrified, pious 
brethren, "Dis is no time for prayin'- -go to work !" Out 
on the border districts where help not easily obtained, 
even the wives and daughters of planters — ladies of culture 
and refinement, it may be — sometimes turn out and toil in 
the mud and rain, contending with the foe that threatens 
their homes. If the levees before a great city be threat- 
ened, as frequently occurs, the scene becomes still more 
exciting. Business is almost entirely suspended in the city 
and the clerks in the dry goods stores, the lawyers, the 
merchants and the common laborer.", stand shoulder to 
shoulder with picks and shovels fighting the common 
enemy. What the outcome will be no one knows. All are 
alarmed. Hundreds of boats are moored to back-doors, 
ready for use when the worst shall come. Merchants have 
placed their goods high up in their stores, hoping the 
waters will not reach them when they rise. House- 
keepers have packed up their goods out of the way of the 
water and laid in stores enough to last for weeks, in case it 
becomes necessary to stay indoors for that length of time. 
All railway communication with the outside world is cut 



FLOODS IN THE SOUTH. 



273 



off, nearly all the tracks being several feet under water. 
The mails are sent miles away, by boat. 

Such cases were frequent in the recent floods. Green- 
ville, Mississippi, is one of the towns that suffered much. 




The water from crevasses above came down upon the town, 
and were stopped by a levee around the city. But while 
the enemy in the rear could be held in check, it was not 

18 



274 GREAT DISASTERS. 

so easy to repel the attack upon the river front ; and here 
the water won the day. All efforts were in vain. The 
forlorn and miserable city appeared as though some savage 
caricaturist had endeavored to perpetrate a burlesque upon 
Venice. A few skirls crept about the muddy currents 
that answered for streets. On outhouses and fences occa- 
sionally might be seen a few melancholy looking fowls. 
Here some grocer paddled about to see if his patrons 
wanted aught; yonder went a funeral party in a single 
boat. Many a weary mile would have to be traverse' 1 to 
reach a dry grave. The lower floors of most houses lay 
beneath the water, and from the second-story disconsolate 
people looked out upon the turbid waste, wondering- what 
the end would be. 

If the scene upon the levee is exciting when efforts are 
made to avoid breaks, still more so is it when a small 
break is being closed. The scurrying to and fro ; the 
hoarse shouting of orders ; the wild cries for aid from 
threatened points ; men plunging up to their necks in the 
rushing flood, driving stakes, dragging sacks of earth, 
heaving in boulders and rubble stone; others bringing 
timbers and planks from hundreds of yards away; the 
dim, smoky glare of countless torches; the burly figures of 
wearied men begrimed almost beyond semblance of human- 
ity — such a picture is more like a strange nightmare that 
one never forgets. 

Then suddenly there is a general melting away of hun- 
dreds of feet of the sodden levee. The fight is lost. 
Scores of the laborers leave for their homes to save what 
they can of their property. From farm to farm the news 
spreads. In the dead hour of the night, when all is serene, 
the dread cry comes, " the levee is broken," and then comes 
a wild stampede for safety, many in their night clothes, 
women dragging their babes, husbands carrying their 



FLOODS Itf THE SOUTH. 






wives, and the poor negroes, wild with terror, unable to 
do anything bat stand and view the scene of the wa 

rushing to bear them to their doom. . I planta- 




tions of yesterday are to-day seas of rushing, foaming 
water. Here and there in the shallows stand a few s 
ering, half-starved cattle ; and occasionally is seen a fam- 



276 GREAT DISASTERS. 

ily, still hoping that the flood may not be disastrous, 
clinging to their residence. 

The view of a crevasse in an inland levee, miles away 
from the channel, is strikingly grand ; but for those in its 
pa h the grandeur is lost in a feeling of despair and danger. 
The ocean presents a different spectacle, for the ocean has 
no swift current, and its waves are greater. The foam- 
ing mountain torrent can not compare with it, for the 
mountain torrent is at best but a few yards in breadth. 
But in the swollen river is found an apparently illimitable 
expanse of water, heaving restlessly under the swift foot 
of the wind, or foaming and dashing at the roar of the 
storm, hurling itself in billows upon the toilers on the 
levee, and striking them into the ditch beyond, yet, 
with all the fury expended laterally, rushing seaward 
almost with the speed of a train. For miles between the 
levee and the main channel the stream pours through a 
great forest, or canebrake, or cypress swamp. 

The fearful noise of a crevasse may be heard for a longdis- 
tance. No need to tell the planters far inland the meaning 
of that distant hoarse murmur. Approaching the break, 
the murmur swells to a deep sullen roar. The water comes 
tearing through the dense forest at race-horse speed, not 
in a broad belt, but closing in from every direction, pour- 
ing; into that break as into an immense funnel. As far as 
the eye can penetrate into that dense, gloomy forest, it is 
raggedly carpeted with a heavy, tossing sheet of snow- 
white foam. It breaks over stumps, snags and the up- 
turned roots of fallen trees, flinging white clouds of spray 
up among the branches of trees overhead, mounts in snowy 
billows over piles of driftwood, it snarls, hisses and roars 
like some mad monster at everything in its path, and then 
plows in one solid foaming mass into that raging maelstrom 
between the ragged, frothy jaws of the crevasse. 



FLOODS IX THE SOUTH. 



277 




278 GREAT DISASTERS. 

" Nearest the break, just as it sweeps into the crevasse, 
it curls on either side, and huge breakers mark the line 
where it chafes the crumbling ends of the levee. Once 
beyond the broken barriers, it plunges into a wild, lone- 
some-looking swamp, that still shows the tracks of the 
former disaster. Here, for the first time, the real power 
of this tremendous flood begins to assert itself. Supple 
young trees, eight or ten inches in diameter, are bent and 
st lipped of every leaf, their naked branches and twigs 
whipping the foaming surface of the rustling cataract. 

"It sweeps into the standing timber with a hoarse roar, 
foaming around sturdy trunks, and here and there one 
sees a tall tree swaying to and fro like a drunken man : 
then caught in some fierce eddy, it is twisted from its roots, 
and reeling: around and around it falls into that tremen- 
dous current and is swept away to swell the tangled dams of 
drift beyond." 

As far inland as the eye can reach there is nothing but 
flood to be seen, the currents opening out and racing away 
in ever} direction. At some distance away may be seen a 
flooded settlement, the water washing the windows of fif- 
teen or twenty abandoned cottages. On a huge mound 
some five or six feet out of the outflow, is a group of dis- 
consolate horses and mules who have taken refuge from 
the rising flood, and other hungry-looking brutes wander 
over the levee. 

But once out of the immediate neighborhood of the 
break, the character of the scene changes. The current 
slackens, as the water spreads out like an immense fan, 
and at length becomes almost imperceptible. It may 
come in the night, giving no warning of its approach. It 
steals through the grass-lands like a serpent. The slum- 
family hear no sound. The water creeps stealthily 
around the house, like the Red men in the olden days. 



floods rx 1*HJE SOVTli. 



27V 



The morning sun finds it lapping uneasily in the breeze 
against the threshold. The wakening family find it 
crawling across the floor toward their beds. They look 
upon a region that appears a vast marsh; grass tops, 




bushes, little islets and tall trees, everywhere rising out of 
the water. In the barnyard the drowsy cattle chew their 
cuds in peaceful unconsciousness of the wily foe. The pig 



280 GREAT DISASTERS. 

in the lower corner of the lot grunts contentedly to find 
his wallow freshly moistened. The quacking duck pad- 
dles complacently about the fields. The farmer watches 
anxiously the progress of the flood, trusting that there 
may be no necessity of leaving. Valuable property that 
can not be removed is taken to the second floor, if there be 
one. A boat, if there be one, is carefully overhauled to be 
ready for an emergency. 

Noon comes. The flood has risen but a few inches. 
The cattle eye the water curiously. The negroes in their 
cabins speculate upon the future, and each tells his, tale of 
" hair-breadth 'scapes and ventures " in other days, and 
one and all agree that "dis ain't no flood — sho ! no ! You 
orter hab seed the big high water way back in seventy- 
four. Dat was sumfin' like ; " and in humble submission to 
the opinions of some old granny of unknown age and 
grizzled wool, it is unanimously allowed that "we ain't got 
no cause to be skeered dis time ; not much ! " So the 
happy-go-lucky fellows sit and chat, while some oily 
skinned picaninnies wade to deeper parts of the water, 
cast in their hooks and begin to swap tales of the wonder- 
ful fish their progenitors had caught in other floods, and 
to wonder if more brilliant achievements may not be 
recorded of them. 

The wind rises. The great crevasse, miles away, has 
widened till it is hundreds of yards in extent and many 
feet in depth, pouring upon the land millions of cubic feet 
of water every minute. With the swelling breeze, the 
flood goes surging inland in long, low, lazy waves. The 
planters who have not already taken flight, conclude it is 
useless to endeavor to remain. If the way is open, the 
cattle are driven inland to the hills. Some of the negroes 
straggle after their employers ; others cling to their rude 
log cabins— all they have to lose — it may be that the flood 



FLOODS m THE SOUTH. 281 

will not be serious. So long as corn meal and bacon 
abound, they may enjoy an endless picnic. They can fling 
their lines from time to time into the stream, and per- 
chance vary their repasts with fish-fry or turtle stew. 

Evening comes. The lazy waves now nearly reach the 
window-sills upon the lower floors. The cattle left behind 
low uneasily as they move about in water knee-deep. No 
one is near to feed them, and the udders of the cows are 
swollen with milk. Here and there a mule is seen, stamp- 
ing impatiently and braying mournfully for lack of feed. 
The water displays a decided but wayward current, swirl- 
ing now this way, now that. All the land is covered. 
Here and there numerous snakes have crawled into the 
bushes to escape the yellow flood. Out in a lowland tract 
a deserted shanty bobs idly along, now grounding a 
moment, now floating lazily around a great tree, finally 
becoming an item of the great mass of drift that has 
lodged at the edge of the forest, and swarms with small 
animals flying from the clutch of the crawling water. The 
game of the canebrakes and swamp regions has fled to the 
uplands, and from time to time some needy refugee family, 
heedless of game laws, adds venison to its scanty store. 

The night wears away. The negro cabins are deserted : 
most have floated away with the growing current. The 
simple folk have abandoned them. Some have made their 
way to the levees, hoping for a passing steamer. Others, 
dwelling above the crevasse, have little to fear from cur- 
rents; and as the water rises around them, they take to 
hastily constructed rafts, transferring their few household 
effects thereto, and dwelling for days in a floating camp, 
sheltered from the rain by a wagon-sheet or old quilts 
stretched over a low ridge-pole. Mooring the rafts to trees, 
they lead, to others a romantic, to themselves a precarious 
existence. 



282 



GREAT DISASTERS. 




FLOODS IN THE SOUTH. 283 

A whole village deserted by its people wears a singu- 
larly melancholy aspect. Let the reader row with a press 
correspondent through the little town of Bayou Sara La, 
as it appeared during the recent overflow. The town lies 
on rolling ground, dotted here and there with low hills or 
drifts of sand and alluvial deposits, left there by the floods 
of ages ago. 

" Even over the center of the roadway back from the 
front street, which is just behind the levee, it is unusual to 
find less than four feet of water, while in many places a 
nine-foot oar can not be made to touch bottom. In some of 
what, in times of low water, are beautiful residence streets, 
the boat as it went gliding on the shining moonlight flood 
would pass so close under the spreading branches of the 
great live oaks, which interlock their boughs over the 
roadway, that her occupants would be compelled to bend 
down almost level with the gunwales to avoid being swept off 
the thwarts. The freaks of the currents wandering through 
the flooded streets seem wholly unaccountable. Sometimes 
they would run parallel with, and at others directly at 
right angles to the streets. Often progress would be 
blocked by long sections of wooden -plank sidewalks, gates, 
doors and cisterns that had formed barriers across the 
street, while at every turning the boatman would be com- 
pelled to dodge huge floating masses of drift in which out- 
houses, timbers, sections of roofs and other heavy wreck- 
age inextricably commingling were slowly floating on the 
lazy current. 

"The air was soft and balmy as that of a midsummer 
night, and the mellow light of the young moon that was 
already hanging low over the grei.t sand hills to the west- 
ward, spread a soft \ ale light of deep blue on the bright 
spangled sky. There were faint night breezes waving the 
topmost branches of the great shade trees, but they did not 



284 GREAT DISASTERS. 

touch the rippleless, shining flood which gleamed in long 
narrow paths. The white moonbeams that, like ribbons 
of burnished silver, but slept inky and motionless under 
the black shadows of the trees, and the rounded outlines 
of each great shade tree was sharply reflected in the mir- 
ror-like surface of the water and bordered by a dainty 
rim of silver. Houses with snow-white walls were faith- 
fully mirrored in that motionless, glittering flood. While 
to the eastward of each lay a long, deep shadow — a star- 
less night — huge shapeless masses of wreckage drifting 
past black opaque shadows that grew longer and more 
intense as the young moon sank so low that her lower 
horizon was dipping behind a great hoary-crested sand 
hill in the west. The scene was exquisitely beautiful, but 
at the same time weird and uncanny. Not a human voice 
was heard, but near at hand between the lower whispering 
of the softly dipping oars came the ever varying chorus of 
the frogs mingling with the low musical murmuring of 
the mighty river and the deep sullen roar of the crevasse 
on the far off southern shore. There the sides of the skiff 
would brush the perfumed shrubbery of a submerged 
lawn ; there could be seen the tree-tops of a splendid 
orchard just rising out of the flood, their lower limbs sway- 
ing and bending with the current. In all this scene of 
beautiful ruins there was a sense of utter loneliness that 
was strangely oppressive. Of those who a week ago filled 
this bright and hustling little town to overflowing, only 
six families remain. The others have all fled to the ad- 
joining hills, leaving their houses to their fate till the 
water shall have subsided." 

Such villages as are not deserted have little to do with 
the world beyond. The post-offices are often exhausted, 
in addition to the fact that the nearest points not block- 
aded are miles away ; so that the telegraph only brings 



FLOODS IN THE BOUTH. 



285 



news from beyond, or tells the world how fares the little 
hamlet. The operator may be driven to the upper story, 
or to the roof, there to dispute possession with stray turtles 
or snakes, or to listen to the hoarse remonstrance of some 




old bullfrog whose nocturnal rest is broken by the click- 
ing of the key. All around is a dreary waste of water, 
on which the gleam of the moon appears like a ghostly 
foot-path, and the dark shadows of the naked-limbed trees 



286 GREAT DISASTERS. 

menace like gaunt spectres. From his elevated position 
the operator may see the flash of the search-light of a 
steamer miles away, as the vessel flits along the stream, 
collecting refug( es from the shores ; and ever and anon the 
deep harsh bray of the fog-horn breaks the stillness. Save 
for these distant tokens of life there is 

"Death and silence! death and silence! 
Deaih and silence all around!" 

At the great crevasse itself the spectacle is exciting. 
The fight is not abandoned. Desperate efforts are made 
to secure the ends from further washing. That once 
done, there is hope of closing the gap. At the extremity 
of the break a floating pile-driver is fiercely hammering 
heavy timbers into the spongy soil. 1 here a tiny, fussing 
tug is engaged in trying to float a mat of brushwood 
against the broken bank, while a score of anxious men 
are watching an opportunity to peg it down. Others 
endeavor to weave pliant branches among the driven piles 
to afford a better hold for the guano sacks of earth that 
are being thrown into the break. From these moist earth 
is often washed out by the powerful current as though it 
were melting sugar; while now and then some timber, 
undermined by the steadily deepening current, leaps up- 
ward as though endowed with a life of its own, and dashes 
away on the foaming stream. After hours of the fierce 
contest, the ends are at last secured. The pigmy has 
stopped the giant. The work progresses more easily, now 
that the workers are sure of their ground. The stubborn 
creatures contest every inch of space. The roar of the 
battle goes up incessantly. One fights for life, the other 
for liberty — such liberty as the tyrant asks of his subjects; 
such liberty as the wolf asks of the sheep, or the hawk 
of the doves; such liberty as the strong has always 
demanded of the weak and defenseless. 



FLOODS IN THE SOUTH. 287 

By and by the voice of the struggling monster grows 
weaker. The persistent creatures that swarm about him 
assault him with renewed vigor and pertinacity. The 
roar of the conflict dies away by degrees. Step by step 
the two bands of men approach each other. Only a nar- 
row channel remains. Presently the forces clasp hands 
over the chasm. In a few moments there remains but a 
tiny, remonstrant, murmuring trickle of water. Another 
stroke and it is finished. The pigmy has conquered the 
giant. The ant has chained the elephant. 

But what, in the meantime, has been the fate of the dis- 
trict along the levee front ? Here the water does not rise 
slowly and stealthily as in the regions far inland, where 
the force of the current is lost. The planters and all their 
available forces, it may be, have been busily fighting the 
rising floods, but have been finally vanquished momenta- 
rily by wind and wave. Hoping to hold the levee, few, 
perhaps, have removed their families, goods, or chattels, 
or livestock. Then when the break comes, the raging 
flood rushes in over the fields and woods, demolishing out- 
houses, shaking cottages, drowning stock, hurling masses 
of drift against dwellings that might otherwise stand — 
seeming as though a living genius of destruction. 

Here a family, carrying only a few changes of clothes, 
and a purse but too scantily filled, hurry wildly toward 
the river front, in hope that a passing steamer may pick 
them up ; there a planter who has saved his family is 
hurrying a drove of cattle to the levee, vaguely wonder- 
ing, in the mean time, how he shall feed them if the flood 
lasts long; here a negro family, chattering noisily like 
frightened crows, trudges through water and mire knee- 
deep or waist-deep, bearing on their heads bundles of dirty 
bedding, or old clothes — one or two lugging sacks of meal 
and flitches of bacon, with a blind confidence that they 



288 



GREAT DISASTERS. 




mir'H i'i |i s 



FLOODS IN THE SOUTH. 289 

have made sufficient provision for every emergency. 
There a forlorn squatter is punting a rude raft with his 
few belongings slowly athwart the restless flood. Yonder 
a band of negroes, unaware of the break in time to reach 
the river, have congregated in an old gin house, and swarm 
upon its roof, yelling and gesticulating wildly in their ter- 
ror, for aid, which they fear will never reach them ; and, 
as the water rises higher, roofs, barns, hen-coops, and car- 
casses go floating past or lodge against their frail sup- 
port, increasing their peril every moment. Some moan 
and cry ; others pray vigorously, confessing their mis- 
deeds with voluble freedom; occasionally there is some 
old crone who terrifies her auditors with the assertion that 
"de Lord is sendin' another 'varsal flood on men for deir 
wickedness," at which the wicked groan and cry, and the 
pious clap their hands and shout, trusting to shortly see 
the salvation of the Lord. In the distance appear a few 
figures perched in trees, seeming like enormous crows; 
over yonder, some unfortunate has shinned up a telegraph 
pole, which creaks and sways with the rush of the water, 
threatening constantly to return the trembling refugee to 
the flood beneath. The last unfortunates have straggled 
to the levee. The rest must wait for relief. Here and 
there a few cattle stand lowing in water half over their 
sides ; a restless, snorting horse plunges impatiently about. 
A floating tree-trunk strikes them from their hillock, to 
swim aimlessly about till other drifting masses ride them 
down. A hen-coop floats past, on which a hungry chan- 
ticleer is perched, occasionally challenging the flood, and 
in the meantime, with sidelong glance eyeing the confu- 
sion and in undertones discussing the case with his half- 
starved, feathered harem. 

It is a motley throng that huddles along the levee. 
That narrow strip of earth, but eight feet wide at best, is 

19 



290 



GREAT DISASTERS. 




FLOODS IN THE SOUTH. 291 

all that is left as a footing for hundreds. The waves 
swash heavily at their feet; or sometimes, as the wind 
blows stronger, they leap clear over the frail embankment. 
Trudging wearily back and forth on the clayey, slippery 
dykes are planters, once well-to-do, with families of culture 
and refinement ; others of a middle class, and occasional 
specimens of a type denominated by the " man and 
brother " as " po' white trash " are to be seen among the 
throng. The " man and brother " is usually in the major- 
ity in the lowland districts, and adds greatly to the pic- 
turesqueness of the levees in time of flood. Some rear 
their tiny excuses for tents, along the bank, and spend the 
time in uneasily watching the turbid water. Occasionally 
some Dinah or Chloe, who has been on the levee for a 
week, goes through the motion of washing clothes in the 
surging stream, gaining thereby the approval of conscience 
over a duty performed, whether the garments be improved 
or not. Here there is little concern, these being wander- 
ing roustabouts who had nothing to lose ; there some 
grizzled Uncle Tom bemoans the loss of his two scrawny 
mules, and the few pigs and fowls, and his favorite cow, 
which represent the savings of years from his toil in his 
little patch of corn and cotton ; and he feels even sorer 
over his losses than the rich planter who has lost a hun- 
dred times as much. So the little bands assemble, mingle 
and disperse, comparing notes, and all waiting in painful 
anxiety for some steamer to pick them up before the sod- 
den levee shall dissolve beneath their feet and leave them 
struggUng in the stream. At length the government 
relief boat appears, and gathers the throngs by hundreds, 
to transport them to higher lands. Beyond the levee 
skiffs and flat-boats move about the submerged' region, 
picking up the people who have taken refuge on the house- 
tops, among the trees, or on piles of drift. None on the 



292 



GREAT DISASTERS. 



levee fear being passed in the night, for the powerful search- 
light illuminates every straggling group. 

On reaching a place of safety from the waters, scores of 
the refugees are almost penniless, and the question of food 




is a pressing one. The liberal contributions of scores of 
generous souls suffice but for a short time. The govern- 
ment must again come to the front, and issue rations, or a 
money equivalent, sufficient to maintain the destitute till 



FLOODS I> THE SOUTH. 



W3 



the falling of the waters allows them to resume labor upon 
their lands. After that, the crop-lien system in vogue in 




the South enables the people to get credit of their mer- 
chants until the cotton-picking or corn-gathering. 

When the waters subside, and the people return, it is 



294 GREAT DISASTERS. 

often difficult to find old landmarks. In one place huge 
trenches may be washed out ; but away from the immedi- 
ate vicinty of the crevasse the land is covered with mud, 
varying from a few inches to four or five feet in thickness 
— sufficient guarantee of amazing fertility, when the ground 
becomes dry enough to work. In the numerous little de- 
pressions in the surface are stagnant pools that linger for 
a month or two. The larger ones, if not before filled, are 
converted into ponds or marshes, which only thorough 
draining will destroy. The air is tainted by the hundreds 
of carcasses that are entangled in the heaps of drift. The 
hot dank soil, steaming under the summer sun, brings dis- 
ease in the wake of the flood. 

Louisiana, from its character, is usually the principal 
sufferer : the Arkansas borders fare little better. All along 
the course of the stream the land is dotted with lakes and 
pools and marshy lands, created by former overflows. 
Along the lower portion of the river bayous or sloughs 
open from either bank, and meander lazily toward the gulf. 
As showing the character of the country may be men- 
tioned the Little and St. Francis Rivers, which flow south- 
ward from southeast Missouri, nearly parallel to the 
Mississippi, and but forty miles from it at their furthest 
points. In flowing one hundred and twenty miles south 
they double and twist, expanding into sluggish bayous as 
broad as the Mississippi itself, or into shallow island-dot- 
ted lakes ; and the total length of the numerous bends 
and whimsical curves of the main stream, St. Francis, is 
over two hundred miles?. In like manner, Pine Bluff, 
Arkansas, is but fifty miles from the mouth of the slug- 
gish sandy Arkansas as the crow flies ; but to follow the 
windings of that stream the distance is nearly three times 
as great. The backwater of the Mississippi finds its way 
into these sluggish channels, and renders comparatively 



FLOODS IN THE SOUTH. 295 

useless any levees on the banks of the great river near 
their mouths: and from the northern border of Arkansas 
to the gulf the old Father of Waters pursues a course as 
intricate in its windings as the St. Francis. It is asserted 
by many that the mouth of the stream was once perhaps not 
far below Memphis, and that all the land to the southward 
has been produced partly by slow upheaval of the sea-bottom 
and partly by the alluvial deposits of the river and the grad- 
ual extension of its delta, which now projects many miles 
into the gulf This would account for the low and swampy 
character of the land in the entire region. 

The writer has endeavored to give an accurate general 
view of southern floods. While differing in some features 
from floods in other lands, they themselves are much alike. 
The description of a flood of to-day would answer with but 
little adaptation as a narrative of fifty years ago: and 
further details of particular flood scenes are unnecessary. 
Such great overflows are not common, the levees holding 
the river in check on ordinary occasions. Yet, one flood 
season deserves more than passing notice. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE FLOOD OF 1890. 

" And rearing Lindis backward pressed, 
Shook all her trembling bankes amaine, 
Then madly at the eygre's breast 
Flung up her weltering walles againe, 
Then banks came down with ruin and rout, 
Then beaten foam Hew round about, 
And all the mighty Hoods were out. 

So farre, so fast the eygre drave ; 
The heart had hardly time to beat, 
Before a shallow, seething wave, 
Sobbed in the grasses at our feet. 
The feet had hardly time to flee, 
Before it broke against the knee, 
And all the world was in the sea." 

'pHE great flood of 1874 is remembered as the most 
-L destructive of human life in the history of the Mis- 
sissippi valley. It came almost without warning. The 
rolling river rose rapidly, and the levees broke in many 
places before the masses suspected danger. Hundreds of 
people were drowned ; and as for the losses of property, 
no attempt was made to estimate the amount. Certainly it 
amounted to many millions. Perhaps only the Chicago fire 
could compare with it in this respect. Another great year 
of high water was 1882: but the damage done was smaller, 
as the levees had been heightened and strengthened. 

But the floods of this year, in area submerged, in long 
duration, in height of water, and in the pertinacity with 
which they were contested, eclipsed all records. There is 
no measuring the extent of the calamity. There is 
nothing in the recorded history of the Mississippi valley 

29G 



THE FLOOD OF 1890. 



297 




298 GREAT DISASTERS. 

to compare with it. In some places the gauges were com- 
pletely overflowed. Levees that had withstood former 
waters, and had been strengthened since, snapped like 
whip-cords, under the tremendous strain. 

Early in the present year, the Signal Service warned the 
people of the lower Mississippi that very high water might 
be expected, as the snows of the upper Ohio region had been 
very heavy, while the unusually early spring would bring 
the flood water into the lower river at the time of heavy 
spring rains. There the levees were carefully examined, 
and every precaution against high water taken. But the 
people, though expecting high water, had not reckoned 
upon such a flood as came. The river rose above the great 
flood of 1874, passing all previous records by two feet, and 
reaching a foot higher than the levees had been built to 
sustain. 

On January 1, Cairo reported eighteen feet and rising, 
while the river was falling from Louisville up the Ohio, 
was falling at St. Louis, and stationary on the lower Mis- 
sissippi. From the first day of the year the river rose at 
Cairo, and in ten days the river had risen thirteen feet. 

From Cincinnati down the Ohio increased in volume for 
four days, and on January 16, at Cairo, it passed the dan- 
ger line (forty feet) by three-tenths. The rise in sixteen 
days had been one and three-eighths feet a day. At that 
time the river was rising slowly from Evansville down, 
and falling above. A few days later came another rise in 
the Ohio, aided by the Tennessee and Cumberland, and 
by the 1st of February the water at Cairo was almost a 
flood. The volumes of water continued till the lower 
Mississippi was bank full. By the latter end of February, 
the danger point had been reached at Memphis, Shreve- 
port, Vicksburg, and New Orleans. Cairo was already in 
trouble. 



THE FLOOD OF 1890. 299 

On March 12, Cairo reached its maximum, 48.9. The 
Signal Service Office had given out a prediction of fifty -one 
feet, but the failure of the upper Mississippi to rise, pre- 
vented that stage being reached. The river at St. Louis 
had then but five feet of water. 

On March 14, Chief Signal Officer A. W. Greeley sent 
out a warning from Washington to the people living on 
the lower Mississippi. He told them that the rain they 
had had for four days had been drained into the tributaries 
of the great river and would swell it considerably. The 
greatest flood ever known might be expected within a few 
days. All stock and valuable movable property should 
be taken to the hills. New Orleans had then higher water 
than ever before. 

The river was then rising in the lower Missouri, and 
St. Louis was reporting rapid increase in the stage of 
water. Cairo had fallen, but the upper Ohio and lower 
tributaries brought back the upper line of the flood to 
near the maximum stage. 

The lower Mississippi tributaries began to swell. The 
Arkansas and Eed Rivers overflowed their banks. Low 
levees grew weak and succumbed. Low lying towns and 
plantations were flooded. 

Then came the nights and days of terrible struggle 
along lines of levee that protected vast tracts of lands. 
Men were pressed into service whether they liked the 
the work or no, and the shotgun patrol was established 
for the protection of the safer levees from being cut. The 
upper Mississippi swelled rapidly, and while not reaching 
a dangerous stage itself, it added enormously to the peril 
below. Then came floods in Arkansas, Tennessee, Mis- 
sissippi, and Louisiana. 

The first serious trouble from the Mississippi in Arkan- 
sas occurred in Phillips county, above the mouth of the 



300 GREAT DISASTERS. 

White River, where some five hundred people were driven 
from their homes to the highest points by the backwater, 
and the cattle, gaunt, wild-eyed, starving, were forced to 
subsist on cane, twigs of cotton wood and other trees felled 
for them. Three times the backwater and heavy local 
rains flooded this region, while the retiring flood left a 
deposit of mud from one to five feet in depth, precluding 
the possibility of turning the hungry cattle upon the land 
for two or three weeks, and rendering it impossible to 
raise a crop of corn or more than half a crop of cotton. At 
Cairo, the rivers were one hundred miles in width, cover- 
ing fifty miles of Missouri lowlands, and extending to the 
hills in Kentucky ; while Cairo itself was partially flooded. 
The railroads in that section were forced to stop, and the 
people fled to the hills for their lives. Steady rains fell 
in Arkansas, Ohio and lower Missouri River valleys, and 
by the time these began to subside, the floods in the streams 
below had passed previous records. 

The greatest danger and trouble was in the valley from 
Arkansas City southward. Heavy rains produced a break 
in the levee at that place. March 28, the levees broke 
at two points on the eastern shore, between Arkansas 
City and Memphis, Tennessee, submerging many thous- 
ands of acres of land, and sweeping southeastward to the 
Yazoo River. Greenville, Mississippi, a city of 10,000, is 
partially protected by a high ridge through the city ; but 
there was no means of holding back the enemy in the rear. 
The town is situated at the extremity of a sharp eastward 
curve, and a violent storm at length aided the rapid cur- 
rent in cutting away the front defense, and the town was 
forced to yield. Strenuous efforts to close the breaks 
above completely failed ; and all that could be done was to 
secure the ends of the crevasses to prevent their widening. 
Cattle were herded for a time on the levees and embank- 



THE FLOOD OF 1890. 



301 



merits, but these gradually yielded, and the animals were 
drowned in droves. Defenses yielded where least expected. 
By April 3, there was two feet of water in the streets of 
Greenville. There was nothing left but to make the best 




of the situation. People took to the upper floors, and 
appeals for state, national and individual aid were sent 
out. The telephone lines leading out of the city were 
destroyed, and cornmunieation with the outer world was 



302 GREAT DISASTERS. 

greatly hindered. Occasional reports of destitution and 
suffering came from Greenville, but these were contradicted 
by meetings of leading citizens, who said, "there is no 
destitution here that home people can not relieve. If the 
negroes want to wait for government rations and refuse 
from $1.50 to $2.50 per day to work on levees, their 
starving arouses no sympathy. While all these sensa- 
tional reports of destitution are traveling about, the 
steamboats are running into Memphis and Vicksburg 
begging for levee hands, and the native negro is sitting 
on the levee fishing." 

The water swept rapidly southward, submerging almost 
the entire region between the Yazoo and Mississippi. 
Meanwhile, the trouble in Louisiana was just beginning. 
The banks began caving near the levee in Madison Parish 
Front, compelling the erection of a new levee in the rear 
of the old one. But the fight w r ent on stubbornly for three 
weeks, both along the river front and along the bayous in 
the interior. Atchafalaya River was forty-five feet above 
low water. The contest for the levees there was as bitter 
as along the main stream. Occasional breaks occurred, 
but they were closed or kept from spreading by the twenty 
thousand men who labored day and night along the stream 
between Bayou Sara and New Orleans. 

Ere long it appeared that the greatest danger was along 
the Concordia and Pointe Coupee parish fronts. (A parish 
in Louisiana coincides with what is known as a county else- 
where). Considerable appropriations were made, and the 
head of the third district levee system, Captain D. C. 
Kingman, conducted the fight on the Pointe Coupee front 
in person. The battle ended here in disastrous defeat. 
The men held their ground manfully till April 20, no 
serious breaks having then occurred. All that day the 
men were compelled to work in a drenching rain storm that 



raz FL 






was beating fiercely against the already overburdened and 
sodden levees on the west bank of The danger 

at the great Morganza bend grew es a. It was hoped 

that dm. storm woold cease, or at least 




that the wind might shift to some other quarter, but when the 
mr»rninsr broke there w- rime leader, sk rerhead, 

with darker masses still scarrying to the westward I 
ze easterly gale th- ^-5 fresh and strong as 



304 GREAT DISASTERS. 

and which hurled storms of white-capped waves upon the 
rain-soaked earthworks. Bags of earth and sand were 
piled up along the levee, to prevent the waves from wash- 
ing over. Wilder and more furious-rnged the storm : 
higher and higher beat the waves, as the day passed. " In 
the teeth of drenching surf and blinding rain, the battle 
with rising flood went bravely on. Sacks were piled upon 
sacks and revetments of plank and jute bagging were car- 
ried up till the superstructure upon the crown of the levee 
looked like a fair-sized levee itself. Not only the men, 
but even the women and children fought bravely for their 
homes in the teeth of that wild furious storm. 

" As Monday night closed in, the situation was more 
gloomy than ever. The heavy leaden sky was deeply 
shadowed by low hanging clouds of dull slaty black, driven 
before the fierce gale that was sweeping up the reach, 
thrashing it into long ribs of foam that every now and 
then broke clear over the levees all along the New Texas 
system, and beat savagely against the great Morganza, 
just below them. 

" A nightfall dark and wild with wind and storm was 
followed by a night black and tempestuous, and still the 
desperate fight went on. Here and there ruddy, flaring 
torches struggled with the murky gloom, but within their 
dim halos could be seen the big breakers hungrily licking 
the tops of the sodden barriers that throbbed and quivered 
beneath every cruel blow. 

" Planters' wives and daughters stood ankle-deep in mud, 
filling sacks and helping to lift them upon the shoulders 
of the men who were carrying them to the levee. Two 
bold Creoles stood at one weak place, though they felt the 
levee dissolving beneath their feet. They sank to their 
knees in the mud and water, but still they stood stubborn- 
ly on the sinking dike, piling sacks in the breach, though 



THE FLOOD OF 1890. 305 

again and again the flood seemed to be in the very act of 
overpowering and sweeping them away in the very center 
of a crevasse. It was a bloodless battle, but many a man 
has won fame on a gory battle-field who never turned a 
more steadfast, unflinching gaze into the very jaws of death 
than did those brave defenders of their homes during that 
terrible night." 

Suddenly there was a wild outcry and a hurried muster- 
ing of forces at the old Morganza levee. But men and 
materials were no longer of any use. The dull yellow 
flood poured through the gap like a mighty cataract. Four 
hundred feet of the embankment were gone in a few 
moments. 

At once there was a sauve qui pent. The volunteer forces 
of the neighborhood hurried away to save what they could. 
As the Morganza levee was backed by a wide uninhabited 
swamp, there was little danger of any lives being lost by 
the sudden breach, though the people had clung to their 
homes to the last. 

Meanwhile, numerous other breaks were occasioned by 
the storm. The first occurred at Bayou Sara, and others 
followed so rapidly that within twenty-four hours fifteen 
huge crevasses were pouring their torrents upon the land. 
Two other breaks occurred in the Morganza; and so vast 
was the volume of water drawn out by the three that the river 
at Bayou Sara, a few miles below, fell a foot in twenty-four 
hours, while the decline above was but an inch or two. 
Despite the gloomy outlook, the men toiled wearily on and 
finally succeeded in closing most of the breaks ; but the 
great Morganza crevasses defied every effort. Then came 
breaks in the Atchafalaya, and the turbid waters united 
and swept southward one hundred miles to the sea. Some 
towns were abandoned to the snakes and frogs ; in others 
the people put false floors in their dwellings and prepared 
20 



306 



GKEAT DISASTERS. 



for a siege. Government steamers plied up and down the 
country, picking up the refugees and all accessible live- 
stock. The effort to keep back the water was at an end, 




and all that could be done of any especial use was in the 
way of salvage. The only remaining question was that of 
providing for the destitute. Appropriations from the State 
treasury were made, and corporations and private individ- 



THE FLOOD OF 1890. 307 

uals contributed liberally. On April 24, two great breaks 
occurred in Concordia Parish, north of Pointe Coupee, 
thus much increasing the submerged area. From the 
items given, and the fact of breaks in east Baton Rouge, 
and the Nita crevasse, and twenty or more below New Or- 
leans, the reader may see that a large portion of eastern 
Louisiana lay more or less under water. By the end of 
April there was no fear of further danger, simply because 
there was little harm left to do. The continual east wind 
added to the distress on the lower river by sweeping Lake 
Pontchartrain and the gulf water across the land, up to 
the levees on the river. 

The one peculiar feature of the recent flood is that but 
few lives were lost — perhaps not a dozen, all told. The 
warning of the Signal Service put people on their guard, 
and there was no occasion for surprise. 

The damage to property can not be estimated. Three 
thousand square miles of land were more or less flooded 
in Louisiana alone ; and while much of this was useless 
swamp land, the larger part comprised some of the most 
valuable sugar plantations in the State. Fifty thousand 
people were directly affected by the flood in this region. 
All the railroads in this district suffered severely from 
wash outs and loss of time and custom. Any estimate of 
the damage done to planters should include not only real 
estate and personal property, but also the amount of loss 
from inability to raise the customary crops. This single 
item would be very large. But when we consider the ter- 
rible havoc committed in other lands and attended by 
fearful loss of life, we may be devoutly thankful that 
things were no worse with us. 

The levee system is attended by peculiar perils. There 
must be constant watching and repairing. At seasons of 
danger, patrols are needed, even when the levees are 



308 



GREAT DISASTERS. 




THE FLOOD OF 1890. 309 

sound; for human nature is full of rank selfishness, and 
people who find their property endangered are apt to cut 
the levee upon the opposite side above them, to n 
themselves by flooding others. Hungry wolves will eat 
a wounded companion ; but man is almost the only animal 
that seeks an opportunity for wounding his fellow that 
he may have a pretext for devouring him. 

The craw-fish is another persi temyofthepl nter, 

undermining levees with his numerous tunnels, and ■ 
penetrating the low lying fields at a distance from the 
river, not infrequently d the roots of growing 

crops. The ground becomes like a sponge, and v. 
oozes from the levees in countless pli 

There are other objections to the l< m ; and 

while the Mississippi River Commi ud a majority of" 

engineers endorse it, there are not a few equally capable 
men who denounce it as false in theory, and mischievous 
in practice. The problem remains a pi If 

the floods are unrestrained, a large portion oftheri 
bottom betiomes uninhabitable a considerable portion of 
each year. As to controlling them, a man of much t 
rience said at the time of the flood in 1882, " I have lived 
on the river for thirty years, and I have studied it, for it 
was my business to do so. I have been steam-boating all 
that time. lam now certain that I don't know anything: 
about it, or about what ought to be done to it." 

Another said, "When God put the river into this val- 
ley, He told it to go -ver it pleased, and it ah 
has done so, and always will." 

Yet, the problem can not be considered hopeless, though 
mere experiments are dangerous. TL kittle doubt 

that the levees would have withstood the un precede! 
high water of the present year, had it not been aided 

rlv storm. But the lev 



310 GREAT DISASTERS. 

must remain a constant expense. More than $90,000,000 
have already been spent upon them, and the question is an 
even more vital one than ever. 

The chief opponents of the levee system advocate the 
increase of outlets. A glance at a large scale-map of 
Louisiana will show the reader how very narrow the 
mouths of the river are in comparison with its breadth 
above; and when it is remembered that these passages 
required deepening ere large vessels could reach New 
Orleans, it is clear that the outlet men have good reasons 
for asserting that the proper thing to do is to open as 
many outlets to the sea as possible. Yet, the majority of 
engineers declare this to be unscientific, and radically 
wrong. The levee men propose to narrow the channel 
and to rely upon the " scour " of the water to keep the 
river bottom free enough to afford a clear passage to the 
sea. The "scour" is aided as far as possible by clearing 
away obstructions where it is desired to maintain a chan- 
nel, and by placing other obstructions in places where 
natural shallows have been formed. This is the work 
carried on by the commission, and is one in theory with 
that executed by Captain Eads in the South Pass of the 
Delta. He claimed that if the water flowing through the 
pass should be confined within comparatively narrow 
banks, it would scour out the bottom, and so deepen its 
own bed. The primary result was exactly opposite to 
this. The water refused to do the work expected of it, 
and following the law of nature, sought the line of least 
resistance. Finding the South Pass obstructed, or rather 
narrowed, much of it turned aside and poured through the 
Southwest Pass and the Pas a l'Outre, and instead of 
scouring out the South Pass, scoured the other two to the 
depth of two feet below where their beds had formerly 
been. As soon as this was discovered, the two passes were 



THE FLOOD OF 1890. 311 

partially dammed up, and the water thus forced through 
the South Pass. 

It is evident, at a glance, that the amount of " scour " 
will only be as much as will permit ready exit of the 
water at ordinary stages. The moment that point is 
reached, the "scour" ceases, and does not again act unless 
the river be still further narrowed. Hence, this plan, 
while increasing facility of navigation, only robs Peter to 
pay Paul, so far as protection is concerned ; for what is 
gained in depth and speed, is necessarily lost in breadth. 
The "scour" system has even failed to hold its own, and 
has had to be reinforced by dredging machines. 

This last fact tends to confirm the arguments of the 
outlet advocates. They urge that the immense amount of 
silt carried by the river is destructive to the entire scheme. 
During flood time this silt is nearly equally distributed 
throughout the water. When an overflow occurs, the 
immense quantity is shown by the vast alluvial deposits 
left in the submerged region. 

According to the believers in the anti-levee theory, if 
overflows are prevented, the earth held in suspension, instead 
of being deposited where it will enrich the land, will grad- 
ually sink to the bottom of the river. The result will be 
that the river-bed will be steadily raised until the surface 
of the water at ordinary stages will be as high as the pres- 
ent floodmarks. Levees will have to be built higher and 
higher, the river will be raised far above the adjacent 
country, and should a break occur at any point, the conse- 
quence will be disastrous in the extreme. As an example 
of the effect of confining a silt-bearing alluvial river to its 
bed, the Hoang-Ho in China is cited. By constant dyk- 
ing the bottom of the stream has been raised above large 
tracts of the adjacent country and some of the mpst ter- 



m 



r*HKAr tHsAmm, 



imJimlfrmk\ 




THE FLOOD OF 1890. 3l3 

rible catastrophes in the history of floods have resulted 
from a break in the dykes during floods. 

The natural result of the continual raising of the bot- 
tom is that where any serious breach occurs, it is 
simply impossible to repair it. So the great river has 
changed its channel entirely several times in the past two 
thousand years. In 1852 it burst through its banks three 
hundred and fifty miles from the sea, and cut a new chan- 
nel through the northern part of the province of Shan- 
tung to the Gulf of Pechili, where it emptied nearly two 
hundred and seventy-five miles north of its former mouth 
in the Yellow Sea. The sharp angle at which it turned 
off is noticeable on the maps. This region being almost 
unknown to foreigners at that time, no one can say how 
many thousands or millions of lives were destroyed by 
" China's Sorrow." 

But the greatest disaster of this sort occurred in 1887, 
when the heavy fall rains of the northwest provinces 
swelled the streams, and the Yellow River finally broke its 
banks at a sharp bend in the Ho-nan province, where the 
town of Chen «: Chou is situated. Frantic efforts were 
made to close the gap, but in vain. It rapidly grew to a 
width of one thousand two hundred yards. Some distance 
away the yellow torrent turned into the valley of a small 
stream known as the Luchia, down which it rushed in an 
easterly direction, overwhelming everything in its path. 

" Twenty miles from Cheng Cliou it encountered 
Chungmou, a walled city of the third rank. Its thou- 
sands of inhabitants were attending to their usual pursuits. 
There was no telegraph to warn them, and the fir^st inti- 
mation of disaster came with the muddy torrent that rolled 
down upon them. Within a short time only the tops of 
the high walls marked where a flourishing city had been. 
Three hundred villages in the district disappeared utterly, 



314 GBEAT DISASTERS. 

and the lands about three hundred other villages were 
inundated. 

"The flood turned south from Chungmou, still keeping 
to the course of the Luchia, and stretched out in -width 
for thirty miles. This vast body of water was from ten to 
twenty feet deep. Several miles south of Kaifeng the 
flood struck a large river which there joins the Luchia, 
The result was that the flood rose to a still greater height, 
and pouring into a low-lying and very fertile plain which 
was densely populated, submerged upward of one thou- 
sand five hundred villages. 

" Not far beyond this locality the flood passed into the 
province of Anhui, where it spread very widely. The 
actual loss of life could not be computed accurately, but 
the lowest intelligent estimate placed it at one million five 
hundred thousand, and one authority placed it at seven 
million." 

The inundated provinces were under water four months. 
Two million survivors were left destitute. The mind quails 
at the appalling magnitude of such a catastrophe. 

Such is the warning given by the Yellow River. It 
is urged that if the Mississippi is heavily leveed, the same 
results will follow. The Po is another instance. The 
bed of the stream has been raised by dykes until it is 
higher in many places than the tops of the houses, and 
such disasters as have befallen the dwellers near the Yel- 
low River of China, have only been avoided because of the 
fact that the Po is a comparatively diminutive stream. 
It is said that the same state of affairs exists on a smaller 
scale still on the Tiber. But the opponents of the outlet 
theory ascribe the China floods to ignorant engineering — 
a charge that can not be easily made to stick, when it is 
remembered that the Chinese have some of the most re- 
markable specimens of engineering skill in existence. 



THE PI 315 

In support of the outlet theory, a number of experi- 
enced river captains and \ i -rt that the bed or' 
river has been slowly rising during the past thirty 
that levees ar;- needed at points where none were y 
ago, while at the same time there is less water in the chan- 
nel at those points than formerly. At t. of this 
writing ( i Condon is urging that an outlet be made 
through Lake Borgne, from a point ten mi es bel 
Orleans. H s company is to assume all costs, only asking 
that if successful, they shall be paid $." )i r every 
foot of reduction of the high water level. H* that 
one-fourth of the flood waters can be readily drained off 
by this means. This Lake Borgne idea, commendable as 
it appears, has been agitated, more or less, for forty years, 
without being tried. A ivy _ -"eminent engineer, 
Charles Ellet, urged it at the time of the flood of 1853, 
without avail. 

"Whatever be the result of present deliberations, we 
must hope that no effort will be spared to thoroughly test 
the merits of any system agreed upon. But the long 
deliberations and the slow movements of the governmental 
commutes are vexatious to those most vitally concerned 
A prominent Louisianian says : "If the government and 
the people had raised (500,000, placed a larger force, and 
held that Morganza levee, it would have c than the 

mere relief expenditures, y nothing of the mill 

of total loss of the flood." And// Weekly affirms 

that "in one respect the casual observer is moved to sar- 
castic reflections. When a flood does come, like the pres- 
ent one, or even one of much less dimensions, the work of 
the commission is of ended, and at first 

sischt it seems extremely ridicul ras to see engineers wait- 
ing: for the water to subside before thev can place confines 
many feet below the present surface, which confines axe 



31fl 



GREAT DISASTERS. 



intended, in part at least, for the purpose of preventing 
similar overflows in the future." 







Holland, the land of windmills, is another region which 
has a continual struggle with this levee question, The 



THE FLOOD OF 1890. 317 

native name of the country, " Xederlands," or Nether- 
lands, refers to the character of the region, which lies as 
an average, about on the sea level ; while a great portion 
is even somewhat lower. The thrifty people who settled 
here, erected dykes to keep back the sea, and built wind- 
mills to pump out the water, thus reclaiming a fertile tract 
from the bottom of the sea. But the great dykes need inces- 
sant watching and repairing ; and the expenditures upon 
them up to the present time, have been greater than would 
have been required to build them outright of solid copper. 
As the safety of the dykes involves all that pertains to 
temporal life and welfare, the people have learned not to 
trust to a single line of defenses. Second and third lines are 
erected in the rear of the first; and many large towns are 
completely girdled with defenses of their own. 

Since the population of this region is nearly five hun- 
dred to the square mile, while our own land does not average 
over eighteen to the same area, it is at once clear that the 
breaking of the dykes is a far more serious and terrible 
matter than the rupture of our levees. Some fearful dis- 
asters in Holland are recorded. In 1421, the dykes gave 
way at Dort, and more than one hundred thousand people 
perished. In 1530, there was a general failure of the 
dykes, and the people, not dreaming of clanger, were sud- 
denly overwhelmed; four hundred thousand perished, and 
the loss of property was proportionate. Two great floods 
have occurred within this century, doing terrible damage. 

The Dutch,though peaceful and phlegmatic, are a liberty- 
loving people, and have often shown themselves ready to 
sacrifice everything for their freedom. They have found 
more than once its safety in the loss of all else. 

One of the most thrillins: and memorable incidents of 
the sort occurred in 1574. Under the leadership of 
William the Silent, one of the noblest of men, the Dutch 






GREAT DfSASTERS, 



!T r 




^ 



^:<<-; 












3E 



•H 





Ms 



>w 



■1 



' 



I 

,nJr ma 
eaten him; so long aa h 

\\ 

- . 

within — W. .emjr w- 

jritry Jolk ahaodo. 
fleet of two hou 

... , . . 

miles from the city. - the 

was a . ;.- ; within thai was 

tarda. But a*. 
inches, it stopped. The Spaniard taunt*. 

Again it * ; die regsek en they 

&y z%r'*iu<\ in sight of the famish/ 
a strong southwest wind — and after day* an> 

ing, the fleet was dose on the last line of fortifications It 
vas the lb%~ ber. In the morning the * heggars" 



320 GREAT DISASTERS. 

of the sea would make a desperate attack upon the Span- 
ish hordes. 

In the night there came a terrible crash. The sea had 
undermined the wall. The citizens were filled with panic, 
fearing an immediate irruption of the enemy. They stood 
under arms through the weary night. 

The morning came. Not a Spaniard was in sight. 
Fearing a sortie of the hunger-maddened people, they had 
fled in the darkness. The city was saved by the drown- 
ing: of the land. 

A story is told of Frederick the Great, illustrative .of 
the same indomitable spirit. After establishing the su- 
premacy of Prussia, he was suspected of designs upon the 
independence of the Netherlands. The Dutch envoy at 
his court, newly appointed, Frederick endeavored to over- 
awe by a display of his power. A great military review 
was held ; and Frederick, who took a peculiar delight in 
tall men, caused troop after trooj} of his gigantic grena- 
diers to file before the weazened little Dutchman, and 
asked his opinion. Of each one the envoy said : " Very 
good, but not tall enough." Frederick, much nettled at 
this oft repeated criticism, asked the ambassador what he 
meant by it. " I mean," he retorted, " that we can flood 
our country twelve feet deep I " Frederick left the Dutch 
in peace. 

Though the most terrible calamities of any kind — 
whether from flood, famine, or earthquake — are to be 
found in the history of China, yet other nations have 
shared in disastrous floods. We mention a few : 

A notable flood occurred on the coast of Lincolnshire, 
England, A. D., 245. It seems to have been a high tide, 
aided by the wind. Three thousand people and many 
cattle were drowned by a flood in Cheshire, A. D., 3f 3. 
Four hundred families were drowned in Glasgow, A. D., 



THE FLOOD OF 1890. 321 

758, by an overflow of the Clyde. A tidal wave destroyed 
several English seaports in A. D., 1014. The Severn 
leaped its banks in 1483, submerging the adjacent low- 
lands, and drowning hundreds. Fifty thousand people 
perished in Catalonia, Spain, during a flood in 1617. In 
Yorkshire, England, occurred a remarkable outburst of 
subterranean waters in 1686. 

" In September, 1687, mountain torrents inundated 
Xavarre, and two thousand persons were drowned. 
Twice, in 1787 and in 1802, the Irish Liffey overran its 
banks and caused great damage. A reservoir in Lurca, 
a city of Spain, burst in 1802, in much the same way 
as did the dam at Johnstown, and as a result one 
thousand persons perished. Twenty-four villages near 
Presburg, and nearly all their inhabitants, were swept 
away in April, 1811, by an overflow of the Danube. Two 
years later, large provinces in Austria and Poland were 
flooded, and many lives were lost. In the same year a force 
of two thousand Turkish soldiers, who were stationed on 
a small island near Widdin, were surprised by a sudden 
overflow of the Danube and all were drowned. There 
were two more floods in this year, one in Silesia, where 
six thousand persons perished, and the French army met 
such losses and privations that its ruin was accelerated ; 
and another in Poland, where four thousand persons were 
supposed to have been drowned. In 1816, the melting of 
the snow on the mountains surrounding Strabane, Ireland, 
caused destructive floods : and the overflow of the Vistula, 
in Germany, laid many villages under water. Floods 
that occasioned great suffering occurred in 1829, when 
severe rains caused the Spey and Findhorn to rise fifty 
feet above their ordinary level. The following year the 
Danube a°;ain overflowed its banks, and inundated the 
houses of 50,000 inhabitants of Vienna." The Saone 

•21 



322 



GREAT DISASTERS. 



1 — TT 




W\ 



i i 







^#£ 



•i v 







•1 ^ - - 



~. !L 



in 



i\a 



n 



overflowed ml- :rbuletr. into 

hundred »quare mile? 
drowning thousands. 
curr<<: in 1& 

I such destruction of life ever visited our own 1 
till * 

it was :xcusable negligee 

floo osder. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 

" A sullen hoarse murmur, and nameless fear! — 
A sound like the tread of a hurrying host! — 
A roar like the storm, as the wild waters near, 
Like the dash of the sea on a crag-bordered coast! 

A wave like a mountain sweeps swift through the vale 
Ten thousand wrecked homes tossing dark in its spray, 
Wild cries of death-anguish echo mocks with her wail — 
And the fiend of the flood now has claimed his prey!" 
t 
FNDIA, profiting by long and sad experience, has pro- 

-*- vided, as far as may be possible, against the contin- 
gencies of drought and famine, by the establishment of a 
magnificent system of storage reservoirs, to furnish water 
for irrigating when rain is wanting. Some of these tanks 
are fine specimens of engineering, and so far as records go, 
no disaster has ever attended their establishment. But to 
be ready and efficient for purposes of irrigation, the water 
must be above the level of the surrounding country: 
hence, the only practicable plan has been to dam up the 
courses of streams and ravines in the hills. As nearly all 
Bengal is comparatively low and level, this method is not 
applicable there; hence, the terrible famines consequent 
in a comparatively small decrease of the average rain 
supply. But in the Deccan, in the Madras presidency, 
and in Ceylon, the reservoir system has been carried to an 
extent astounding to the white man, who depends with 
tolerable certainty upon the rain, and who is accustomed 
to consider other races as universally indolent and im- 
provident. In fourteen districts of the Madras presidency 

324 



THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 



325 




MAP OP COJOiMATJGH VALLEY 



3^6 GREAT DISASTERS. 

are nearly fifty-five thousand irrigation reservoirs, four- 
fifths of which are in regular operation. Their size may be 
estimated by the fact that the retaining dykes average half 
a mile in length. One ancient reservoir, now broken, had 
a dam thirty miles long, shutting in an artificial lake of 
eighty square miles. The Veranum tank covers fifty- three 
square miles, has a dam twelve miles long, and produces 
$55,000 per year. In Ceylon may be seen a gigantic dam 
of cemented stone, fifteen miles long, one hundred feet 
wide at the base, and forty feet wide at the top. 

The same plan is of late years being extensively oper- 
ated in our western tracts for the reclaiming of extensive 
tracts otherwise not cultivable. With these exceptions no 
great use of the reservoir system has been made in this 
country. Every saw-mill, grist-mill or factory in our land 
usually has its dam in an adjacent stream to insure a fair 
supply of water : but none of these can be properly consid- 
ered general precautions against drought. The only prom- 
inent public works of the sort are the Croton storage»reser- 
voirs,by which New York is supplied with water. There 
are eighteen reservoirs, with a total capacity of fourteen 
thousand millions of gallons. China has a great canal 
irrigation system, which is, perhaps, safer in some respects 
than the Hindoo system, but which can not command as 
large an increase of supply in time of drought, the water 
being drawn from the rivers, and thus having compara- 
tively little fall. But the canals so thoroughly intersect 
the whole country as to serve as public highways: and in 
many sections there are no other roads. 

Doubtless the methods of construction in India have 
been learned by long experience. Certain it is that for 
many years, at least, no serious trouble has ever arisen 
from defective retaining dykes. The public welfare is so 
intimately connected with these pools that they are care- 



THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 327 

fully inspected and repaired. The destruction of the sys- 
tem might at any time precipitate a terrible famine. 

Not having a similar condition of things to contend 
with, the average American is not concerned about the 
few dams scattered about the land, not one in a score of 
which would cause any serious loss were it to break : and 
even were such death-traps scattered over every county, it 
is doubtful if a race who will crouch behind a Mississippi 
levee and refuse flight till the last moment, could ever be 
brought to a proper realization of the danger, or their 
culpable negligence. The American is in a hurry: and 
so if speed be obtained, trains may wreck, vessels collide, 
or boilers burst, and the coroner's jury will obligingly 
render a verdict of "nobody to blame." Since he also 
wants things at the bottom market price, he encourages 
the production of countless unsafe buildings, dams, and 
similar structures, merely because they are cheap. 

The most terrible lesson ever given to cheap dam 
builders in the history of our country is one, which, with 
the reader's indulgence, we shall endeavor to narrate. 

In southwest central Pennsylvania, among the foot-hills 
of the Alleghanies, lies the peaceful and picturesque valley 
of the Little Conemaugh. Here, in 1889, within a stretch 
of a dozen miles, lay five industrious and thriving towns : 
South Fork, Mineral Point, Conemaugh, Wood vale and 
Johnstown. The last of these, embracing as it did, Cam- 
bria and Conemaugh Borough, was a city of thirty thou- 
sand people. The population of South Fork was two 
thousand, Mineral Point had eight hundred, Conemaugh 
and Woodvale about two thousand five hundred each. 
The total population of the valley within the distance 
named could not have been far from thirty-eight thousand. 

Johnstown was the center of interest as of population. 
Thither came on May 30th — "Decoration Day" — people 



GREAT Dt> 

from Altoona. Hollidaysbu: g S latrobe, Ebens- 

burg and Wilmore, and from the four othr s already 

mentioned. g a long and ini- 

- nd seem orders, with bands 
of l i jalia, banners, banting and de 

in solemn pomp the cemetc : red. and fl: 

strewn on the graves of the patriotic dead. Th> s 
bat pleasing ied, the procession tamed again 

toward the city, and entering the Opera H listened 

to an eloquent oration. It was a day of more than ordi- 
.1 elation for Johnstown. T -:ood 

happy and unsuspecting on tl brink of an awful 

I :•:-_. 

Duringtheday die sky had been overcast. and the were 
occasional light shaven At nightfall the clouds Io^t e 
more heavily, and seemed to descend nearer to the earth. 
At nine o'clock xL~ - i gentle rain ; at eleven, a tre- 

mendous down-pour, which continued with little interrup- 
tion during the remainder of the nigh:. I: -earned as if 
the wit: - I heaven had been opened. 

I--. ..---.-"..-...-- 

with the Little Conemaugh. Before eight o'clock on the 
morning of the 31st of May. both streams were bank-full. 
he day advanced the lower parts of the town were 
inundated. By eleven o'clock th- a depth of five 

feet at the corner of Main and Market streets, and at the 

S U higher the waters rose. In the houses most exposed, 
carpets were removed from the floors, and pianos and 
organs were lined on chairs and tables. Soon the two 
angry streams were mingling their waters in the business 
center of the town. Both streams had been as nigh be- 
fore, but never both at the same time. Some thought the 



THE J rL<X>D. 

below the atone bridge, was : a-le, and should be 

required to widen it again, and so make a tree i the 

wat- 

By two o'clock the water wa- all 

:he city proper, and the people had : :o their 

'-...- vas inconvenience and eea 

bnt no one apprehended - . They =ur- 

i the providence of God without :- .linking 

of the .old 

me through the heedksmesB _. ed of 

man. 

elve miles up the rive: 
it hundred and fi : 
maugh Lake. This was an artificial ^g 

four hundred, or perhaps four hundred and fii 
land, and having an ge lepth f thirl 

the south fork of the _ . :ove 

its junc: h the main stream, had been built a dam, 

• feet high in the . ht hundred and 

t long . . alley, narrow a: 

Proposed ll L83 and 

autL reeyeais n finally 

in 1852 - naL 

fourteen miles below. A culvert m :: the 

dam contained fine iron da- . . . _ 

dian: Id be opened at lo^ iing 

the ir to the cans". ;wn. 

In 1S57, the I ania Railroad Company, ha ■ 

bought the canal, aba: and tia^ was 

sosed. In July, 1862, 1 

9 to ibunda- 

The depth of water in the re- : the 

re than half 
al capacity. 7 into a chasm, 



330 GREAT DISASTERS. 

and the water of the reservoir was discharged, with the 
exception of about eight feet at the bottom ; but so slow 
was the process, owing to the substantial character of the 
dam, and the resistance it presented, that little harm re- 
sulted. 

From 1862 to 1880, the reservoir was empty, and the 
property, containing something more than five hundred 
acres, was a waste. In 1875 it was bought by Congressman 
John Reilly, and was by him, four years later, transferred 
to the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. This was 
an association of three gentlemen ; suggested and organ- 
ized by Colonel B. F. Ruff, a successful railroad and tunnel 
contractor. All these parties had ceased from membership 
in the club prior to the great disaster. 

The original dam, constructed with care and solidity, 
had involved an expenditure of $240,000. It was built 
in regular layers and solidly rammed, and when finished 
was higher in the middle than at the ends, having a spill- 
way cut through rock in the side of the hill. The cost of 
reconstruction was no more than $17,000. No engineer, 
good or bad, had charge of the work. The material used 
was, for the most part, not more substantial than shale and 
earth and straw. The pipes at the bottom were perma- 
nently closed, and as the dam advanced, the water was 
discharged through a board flume over the top. It was at 
first intended to raise the new dam to a height of no more 
than forty feet, but it was presently discovered that to cut 
down the spill-way through rock would cost more than to 
construct the dam to the original elevation. This was 
accordingly done, though not perfectly, as the dam was 
two or three feet lower than the old one, and had, besides, 
a sag in the middle. A fatal mistake, if once the water 
should begin to flow over the crest. 

Another mistake was the obstruction of the spill-way 



THE JOHNSTOWN FL0OD. 331 

with an iron grating placed to retain the fish, without 
taking the precaution at the same time to enlarge the pas- 
sage. This would have been expensive ; and here, as in 
the construction of the dam, it is apparent that economy 
was consulted. 

The sum of the mistakes made in the summer of 1880, 
and which culminated in the disaster of 1889, were, ac- 
cording to the report of a corps of engineers, who made a 
careful survey, " the lowering of the crest, the dishing, or 
central sag of the crest, the closing of the bottom culvert, 
and the obstruction of the spill-way." 

The people of the towns below had often discussed the 
possible rupture of the dam, but they scarcely feared it. 
Had it not been built by men who understood their busi- 
ness ; and might not these be trusted, as men trust their 
lives to the doctor and their souls to the priest ? Had it 
not resisted the flood of June, 1887 — the highest ever 
known — and why then should it yield to any other ? It is 
certain that in the towns below some were not thinking: of 
the reservoir at all ; while, in case it should give way, few 
had formed the remotest conception of the possible disas- 
ter. On the very day of the awful calamity, when the 
streets and sidewalks of Johnstown were already under 
water, a leading citizen, to the question, " How much 
higher do you think the water will rise if the reservoir 
should burst?" answered quietly, "About two feet;" and 
we have not heard that any ventured to correct the esti- 
mate. 

Unsuspecting souls were they, and yet wholly like other 
men. Those Ions; resident by the volcano have ceased to 
fear its fires. Familiarity, even with danger, breeds con- 
tempt. The evil which still delays, we fondly believe will 
never come. And as to the consequences, if those who 
build darns know so little, why should simple townsmen 



332 GREAT DISASTERS. 

be expected to know more ? Had they guaged that reser- 
voir, and did they know that up there in the mountains 
were six hundred and forty millions of cubic feet of water, 
enough to make a veritable Niagara, for more than half an 
hour, ready to rush down upon them ? Had they calculated 
the awful energy of twenty millions of tons of water falling 
four hundred and fifty feet in a progress of a dozen miles; 
and this progress down a pent-up valley, in some places 
not more than three hundred feet in width ? Had they 
considered that the flow of a mountain of water, sixty feet 
high at starting, must be far more rapid on the top than 
at the bottom ? That the base, entangled among obstruc- 
tions, and overspreading them, would furnish to the water 
above, an inclined plaue, smooth as glass, aloug which it 
would shoot with the speed of an arrow, to fall over the 
edge of the retarded water beneath, and furnish in its turn 
a ready passage for the water above and behind? That in 
consequence of this law, the flood would come not by a 
gradual rise, giving time for escape, but like a rolling 
mountain, to smite with the impact of a falling asteroid, 
and crush in an instant everything in its way? Had they 
reflected that such a body of water would outrun the 
swiftest Paul Revere who might mount steed to fly with 
the warning to the towns below ? That to the doomed, the 
first announcement of danger would be the stroke of the 
destroyer? That to the living there would be absolutely 
no more time for flight than to the sinner, of preparation 
for judgment after Gabriel shall have blown his trumpet? 
It is safe to say that few, if any, had even remotely con- 
conceived the possibilities in the case. Men learn by 
experience, and even from experience they fail to learn ; 
for the lesson of to-day is forgotten to-morrow : and human 
heedlessness is perpetual. 

The crest of the dam stood four or five feet above the 



THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 333 

spill-way. Towards noon of the 31st, persons on the 
watch saw the water of the reservoir rising at the rate of 
a foot an hour. Meanwhile a rumor had spread that the 
dam was leaking, and this attracted other observers. Some 
declared that jets of water were leaping from the lower 
side to a distance of thirty feet. Somewhere about half- 
past two o'clock water began to run over the toj). The 
structure was then evidently doomed ; for, though riprap- 
ped with stone on both slopes, no rampart of earth could 
long withstand the abrasion of a torrent running over its 
crest, and down its lower face. A South Fork pastor 
reached the spot at ten minutes before three. A foot of 
water was then running over the dam. A few minutes later 
a break was made " large enough to admit the passage of 
a train of cars ; " then presently the whole thing dissolved 
almost instantly, like a phantom. A breach was made four 
hundred and twenty-nine feet wide clean down to the bot- 
tom, and with the noise of seven thunders and a tread that 
shook the hills like a young earthquake, out rushed a 
mountain of water " tree-top high." At such a sight the 
awed spectator could only gasp, " God have mercy on the 
people in the vale below." Rushing onward a mile in 
three minutes, or as some have claimed, twice or thrice as 
fast, in an instant down went a mill, two houses and some 
barns, up went an iron bridge tossed like a thing of straw, 
and a moment later the flood was at South Fork. Two 
trains, a passenger and a freight, detained by a wash-out 
further up the road, were standing at the station. Warned 
by the awful roar, the passenger train sprang out just in 
time to save the lives of the people on board. The engi- 
neer of the freight, seeing it impossible to move with his 
heavy train, unhitched the locomotive, opened the throttle- 
valve, and with the fireman, flew for life. The seething 
mountain leaped on the tram and dragged it away, regard- 



334 



OREAT DISASTERS 




THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 335 

less of two brakemen, who surrendered their lives. The 
village of South Fork, standing in the angle above the 
junction of two streams, and on high ground, was com- 
paratively unharmed, though two lives and considerable 
property were destroyed. 

On rushed the river down a valley, having from the 
lake to Johnstown an average grade of more than 
thirty feet in a mile. A mile and a quarter below South 
Fork the river strikes at right angles a projecting cliff. 
The baffled stream makes a detour of two miles and re- 
turns almost into itself, having accomplished an absolute 
advance of no more than seventy-five feet. A railroad 
cut no longer than this quits the river above, then regains 
and crosses it by a viaduct below. The railroad bed at 
the upper end of the cut is twenty feet above the stream, 
while at the lower end it is seventy. Here the torrent di- 
vided ; a part of it, twenty feet deep and forty feet above 
the river-bed, flowing through the cut, the other part fol- 
lowing the channel around. When this latter portion 
returning struck the cliff at the lower end of the cut, the 
water rose to the enormous height of one hundred and 
twenty-five feet. From this point the monster, towering 
to heaven, and like a " wild beast dreadful and terrible 
and strong exceedingly," and ravening for prey, sprang 
upon Mineral Point, a little more than a mile below. The 
town was instantly " wiped out," forty houses being swept 
away and sixteen persons drowned. The rest doubtless 
were saved by clinging to the wreck ; or warned by the 
ominous roar, they had fled to the neighboring hills. The 
Methodist church, lifted from its foundation and tossing 
on the torrent, solemnly, and for the last time tolled its 
bell, as if recognizing the end of its days and usefulness ; 
and continued to toll until its burial was accomplished 
beneath the waters. 



336 GREAT DISASTERS. 

Two miles and a half below Mineral Point the flood 
encountered another bend of the river, with a cut and via- 
duct in all respects similar to that which has been de- 
scribed. Here again was enacted the grand and terrific 
scene which took place above. Then from this augmented 
height the torrent swept down upon East Conemaugh and 
Franklin, a mile below. These villages standing on oppo- 
site sides of the river, constituted the first of that series of 
boroughs known by the name of Johnstown. 

An engineer, backing up the road, and pulling at 
the nose of his locomotive a train of freight cars, 
had proceeded a third of a mile above Conemaugh. Here 
the roar of the coming flood broke upon his ears, and 
looking up the river he saw the descending avalanche. 
Instantly reversing his engine and drawing the throttle, 
his whistle all the while shrieking a wild alarm, he 
pushed at utmost speed the obstructing cars back to the 
yard of the Pennsylvania road. Then leaping from his 
engine, and leaving his whistle still to sound its warning, 
he ran to his house near by, and with his family escaped 
to the hill just as the rolling torrent dashed its billows at 
his feet. 

Three passenger trains and one freight had been stand- 
ing on the side-tracks some hours, detained by the wash- 
out already mentioned. The passengers were reading, 
writing, conversing, worrying, walking up and down the 
tracks in the rain, or watching the driftwood and the 
constantly rising river, but conscious of no danger. 
Something was said about a reservoir somewhere up the 
road, which might burst and come down upon them, but 
they gave the matter no second thought. Twice was one 
of the trains compelled to move, as the water undermined 
the track, and caused it to fall into the river. Once they 
were startled by the crash of a bridge, which yielded to 



THE JOHNSTOWX FLOOD. 



337 




i'i 



338 GREAT DISASTERS. 

the rushing waters, and was swept away. It was near 
the hour of four in the afternoon, and they were still 
wearily waiting. Suddenly they were startled by the 
long, shrill shriek, close to their ears, of engineer Hess' 
whistle, and looking out of their windows up the river, 
they saw an enormous mass of wreckage, roots, trees, and 
driftwood borne aloft on the back of the torrent, and rush- 
ing toward them. With one impulse, the most of the 
passengers leaped from the trains and fled for their lives. 
Those in the first train had to run round, or creep under 
the second in order to reach the town, and thence the hill. 
Between the trains and the town there was a ditch ten 
feet wide, and five and a half feet deep, and filled with 
water. Into this, many plunged — nine women and girls 
together. A gentleman who had leaped across tarried 
a moment to give a helping hand, and all were rescued, save 
one, an aged woman. She was apparently dazed ; for, refus- 
ing the proffered hand, she said, " I will go this way," 
walked toward the maddened waters, and was lost. The rest 
fled amain to the rising ground near by, with the raging 
torrent not ten feet behing them. Gaining the hill they 
turned to behold a grand and awful scene — the crashing, 
tumbling buildings lifted from their foundations and hurled 
against each other ; the shrieks and cries and screams of 
agonizing, despairing, dying men and women, and all Cone- 
maugh going down in the fierce river. The round house 
sprang from its seat like a toy tossed from a giant's hand, 
and more than thirty great locomotives were rolled along 
" like so many pebbles." All the trains were carried 
away. In some of the cars the passengers could yet be 
seen, while on the top of one car, loosened from the rest, 
were two men struggling desperately to keep their hold as 
it rolled from side to side. The whole four trains drifted 
down about five hundred feet, when they were stopped in 



THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 339 

a singular manner. Some inexplicable movement of the 
water lifted the head of one train and threw it across that 
of the other. Engines from the round-house were rolled 
down and piled against these, a mass of trees and drift 
were added, and the whole four trains, with the exception 
of two or three cars, were arrested and anchored in the 
midst of the flood. 

But, though the whistle was a warning, and the hills 
were a refuge to the people of East Conemaugh, the lives 
of twenty-four were lost ; while of the passengers on the 
trains, twenty-six are known to have perished. 

One family were carried down in their house, which 
held together till it drifted against the steep hillside, some 
distance below, where it was arrested long enough for 
them to make their escape. 

Two sisters, clinging to driftwood, were being swept 
past the woolen mill in Woodvale, when a rope was thrown 
to them and they were saved. 

One man was carried on a drifting log clear through 
Johnstown and over into Kernville, to find deliverance 
at the end of a wild, three-miles ride. Another, over- 
taken at the fair grounds, climbed on the ticket shed, and 
thence upon a telephone pole. This being quickly broken 
down by the impact of some solid body, he mounted a 
passing log and dashed ahead all the way to the stone 
bridge, a distance of more than two miles. Here he took 
hold of some wreckage, and by the backwater was carried 
to Main street, near the Presbyterian church, whence he 
worked his way to final safety. 

A quarter of a mile below East Conemaugh was the 
town of Woodvale. The story of its calamity has few details, 
since all its five thousand inhabitants were either drowning 
or engaged in a mad struggle for their lives. Every one of 
its eight hundred houses was lifted in a minute — not one 



m 



GREAT DISASTERS, 




TK D. 341 

rerr: . bat y walls of the 

1 en and flour nail!- xtyrods 

Relatively 

for when the whittles sounded the 

alarm, the hills we: t and the flood was too near. 

Rng waters, and, 
- train was stand- 
m and the hill, and -.. 

1 when tJ 
n and deli uses 

. and tL ;iomonly swept 

v with their shfc \ welling- knowthei 

nderful escape- vital of which would 

fill a bulky Tolume ; but more than one-third of '.. 
popula e quickly counted with the dead. 

L J thered from fiv 

with car? and trees and all the nan umulation from 

miles I rrent l own 

.1. This in turn was quick 
the inhabitants succeeeed in escap- 
ing to the hills. At the lower end of the borough i 

t of the j bria Iron Com- 

a a : . 1 copied per I or twelve acres 

rand. When the flood struck them with their hun- 

fierce fires, there were thunderous that 

.shook the hills, and the whole seemed to rise up at once 

and slide forward on the slanting flood. On 

n must suffice for hun- 
dred I for down 3 .nth 
Ward and lay all night among the wreck \ 

j dead r bile the luxuriant hair of a dead 

in drifted frequently across her face, half buried beneath 
the water. A wealth German lady, a prominent mei. 

ry and his 



342 GREAT DISASTERS. 

wife, my son Charles and my son-in-law were all drowned ; 
my pastor and his wife and four nice little children were 
lost ; there is not one brick of our good, big church left on 
top of another ; and here is the key, which alone remains. 
I think my heart must break from overmuch sorrow." A 
few days later she sank into the grave. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

INCIDENTS AT JOHNSTOWN. 

" They shall sleep 
Where death may deal not again forever, 
Where change may come not till all change end. 
From the graves they have made they shall rise up never, 
Who have left naught living to ravage and rend. 
Earth, stones and thorns, of the wild ground growing, 
While the sun and the rain live, these shall he, 
Till a last wind's breath, upon all these blowing, 
Boll the sea. 
****** 
And till in his triumph, where all things falter, 
Stretched out on the spoils that his own hand spread, 
Like a god self-slain on his own strange altar, 
Death lies dead." 

/T^HE Johnstown flood has no parallel in suddenness 
J- and destructiveness, save in the convulsions of 
the earthquake and volcano, agencies which will be 
noticed shortly, but which have never wrought such seri- 
ous havoc in our own land as elsewhere. But the most 
deplorable feature of this terrible calamity is, that it might 
easily have been averted. It was due entirely to the cul- 
pable carelessness of a club of wealthy pleasure-seekers. 
It would be senseless to prate of " mysteries of Provi- 
dence " in this connection. 

Nothing can give so clear an idea of the exact character 
of the terrible flood — totally different from the overflow of 
a river — than the personal narratives of survivors. A 
chapter devoted to these will be of interest, and serve also 
to illustrate the breaking up of family and social ties that 
are an inevitable consequent of great calamities of every 
kind. 

343 



344 GREAT DISASTERS. 

The flood was slightly less sudden at Johnstown proper 
than higher up the valley. Yet, to the inhabitants, in 
every part of the city, it was almost instantaneous. All 
narrators agree in the statement that they were taken 
completely by surprise. Few of them, whether by sound 
of whistle, or sight of cloud, or of coming torrent, had so 
much as a minute's warning. Mr. Rose seems to have 
had the longest notice of any. He reckons less than 
three minutes after he looked from his window and saw 
the flood a mile above, before his house fell, and him- 
self and family were struggling beneath the water. His 
carriage-house was broken, perhaps three minutes in ad- 
vance of his dwelling. The water which overthrew it 
was a sort of advance guard preceding the main body. 
This partial division of forces was doubtless due to the 
two great bends in the river, which have already bten 
described, or rather to one of them, since one would have 
nearly the effect of two. The upper bend was two miles 
round, while the railroad cut across the neck was only 
seventy-live feet. The smaller portion of water pouring- 
through the cut got nearly two miles the start of the main 
body, which had to flow round the bend. The water 
which got the start at the first cut had to flow round the 
second bend, not being high enough to command the short 
way through the second cut. Practically, therefore, the 
distribution of water made at two bends and cuts was only 
a little more than that which was made at one. Had 
there been no bends and railroad cuts between Conemaugh 
Lake and Johnstown ; had the flood been confined for the 
entire distance to a single channel, then the towns below 
would have recognized no previous swell whatever ; a sin- 
gle gigantic wall of water would have struck Johnstown 
as distinctly as it struck South Point; the inhabitants, in 
most cases, would not have had time even to reach their 







MILL CKELK. 



345 



346 GREAT DISASTERS. 

upper stories; the wave, even more than it did, would 
have crushed as with the single blow of a mighty ham- 
mer, and the number of survivors who could tell a tale of 
wonderful deliverance would have been correspondingly 
diminished. The lesson of these facts is for those who 
dwell below dams or reservoirs. If there be nothing in 
the nature of the channel to distribute the water, and the 
rupture be instantaneous, the destruction of life and prop- 
erty will be awful to contemplate. 

At the Gautier Works, the flood, while extending over 
all the valley, was yet parted into three principal divisions. 
One of these, following the course of the Conemaugh, 
rushed down against the foot of the hill, just above the 
Stone Bridge, and would have instantly swept away that 
magnificiently solid structure, had it not stood parallel to, 
rather than at right angles with the torrent; another turn- 
ing to the left, swept across Conemaugh Borough and the 
upper wards of Johnstown, destroying hundreds of stone 
buildings, the German Lutheran church, and the Hulbert 
House; while the third swept straight down through the 
middle of the city, demolishing the Y. M. C. A. Hall, the 
Municipal buildings, and scores of the finest residences. 
This last, turned into a reverse current by the damming 
of the water at the bridge, was presently rolled back, to 
ensure the destruction of whatever had escaped in its 
downward course. 

Thousands of people, drifted from the towns above, were 
dead already, or still struggling in the water ; and to these 
were now quickly added many thousands more. Of the 
people of Johnstown, it may be said that not a soul had 
time to fly. We hear nothing at all about escapes to 
the hills. At the scream of the warning whistle, some 
were startled, and looked up the river. According to their 
place in the town, they saw, at the distance of a mile, half 



INCIDENTS AT JOHNSTOWN". 347 

a mile, or only a hundred yards away, an ominous and in- 
explicable dark cloud, which might be smoke or spray, 
hanging upon the surface of the water. They felt that 
something unusual had taken place, but of its nature they 
were not well aware. Those who saw it at the greatest 
distance had hardly time to scramble to the upper stories of 
their dwellings, before, even there, they found themselves 
struggling in the water ; while the vast majority, on look- 
ing forth, saw buildings, not a half block above them, 
already leaping from their foundations. Simultaneous 
with the roar and rush of the torrent, came the crash of 
houses, the shrieks and cries of men, women and children, 
the revolution of everything as in a kaleidoscope, and then, 
driven with the speed of a race-horse, houses, furniture, cars, 
locomotives, railroad tracks, the Gautier plant, animals 
alive and dead, trees, lumber and infinite wreckage were 
rushed onward to be jammed and piled at the railroad 
bridge in a maze of ruin fifty feet high and covering 
forty acres of ground. Here the laboring waters finding 
no ready exit, were in part turned to the left up Stony 
Creek, and in part rolled swiftly backward across the cen- 
ter of the city, bearing the drift on their bosom, and in 
some instances droping shattered houses within a square or 
two of their former places. The wreckage above the bridge, 
entangling and holding fast, hundreds, if not thousands, 
as well of the living as the dead, presently caught fire, 
thus adding, through all the long awful night, to the hor- 
rors of flood, the fiercer horrors of flame. From the roar- 
ing conflagration, a sickly baleful gleam was thrown 
through a mile radius of surrounding gloom ; but like the 
Miltonic fires of perdition, from those flames 

" No light, but rather darkness visible, 
Served only to discover sights of woe." 

Some say they saw hundreds throw themselves back- 



348 GKEAT DISASTERS. 

ward into the flames, to perish, and the record of the 
morgues, showing how often a charred arm or leg or half a 
body was interred, prove that upon many, dead or alive, the 
fire did its awful work, while in many cases, doubtless, it 
was done so effectually that not a remnant could be found. 

As the night drew on, St. John's Roman Catholic church 
which had successfully withstood the angry waters, was seen 
to be on fire, driving out the miserable creatures that had 
taken refuge in it, and with its fierce heat scorching those 
on the surrounding drift, till they were fain to relax their 
hold and drop into the water. Those flames, as they 
climbed the beautiful spire and seized the emblem of 
Christianity on its lofty top, seemed to mock the confidence 
of those who in their last extremity were still clinging to 
the cross. In the tower of the Lutheran church, near to 
Stony Creek, the town clock was still sustained far above 
the raging waters. The flood had struck the city at 
four, and as the hour of five drew on, when drifting corpses 
were now everywhere, and thousands clinging to the wreck 
lay at the mercy of the flood or flame, the mechanism of 
the clock serenely moving brought the hands to mark the 
hour, and slowly five times the ponderous hammer smote 
the massive bell, tolling the knell of thousands which that 
hour had rushed into eternity. On the ears of the living, 
the sound of those slowly beating strokes fell with a horrible 
sensation ; for at the end of another hour would be tolled 
a dirge for them. There was something terrible in the 
calmness of that clock, faithfully telling the flight of 
Father Time, reckless whether he had brought joy or woe 
to mortal men. 

But not engulfing flood, nor burning temple, nor holo- 
caust of victims at the bridge could shake the steadfast 
confidence of many in their God. One little boy, when 
his mother and the rest were clinging in the drift at the 



INCIDENTS AT JOHNSTOWN. 

5E 



149 




350 GREAT DISASTERS. 

bridge, asked, "Mamma, where is that God that Mr. Beale 
and Mr. Moore told us about, and said that he would save 
us?" but another little boy, despairing of temporal deliv- 
erance, was hea;d closing his prayer with the beautiful 
words of the 23rd Psalm : " Though I walk through the 
valley of the shadow of Death, I will fear no evil ; for 
thou art with me ; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort 
me." A son asked his mother, " Will we die ? " She 
answered, " I can not tell; but one thing I do know, that 
God does all things well, and if he wants us to-night, he 
will take us ; if not, he will find a way for our escape. 
We will go and sit down and see what the Lord will do." A 
pastor, just escaped with his family to the third story, 
and waist-deep in water, before he could reach it, instantly 
opened and read from the family Bible, which he had 
caught up in his flight : " God is our refuge and strength, 
a very present help in trouble ; therefore, will not we fear, 
though the earth be removed, and though the mountains 
be carried into the midst of the sea ; though the waters 
thereof roar and be troubled; though the mountains shake 
with the swelling thereof." One of the sweetest singers 
in the city had retreated with her family to the attic; the 
house was lifted and apparently moving to destruction, 
when, to soothe her children and her husband, she calmly 
sang, " Jesus, lover of my soul." While she continued to 
sing, the end of a large tree, having great roots, was driven 
through the house, anchoring it firmly just in the edge of 
Stony Creek River. A man who was carried over the 
Stone Bridge, saw a lady on a piece of wreckage shooting 
down the valley of death, and heard her singing those 
same immortal words of Charles Wesley, written by him 
at night, by a feeble spark, in a spring-house, where he 
was hiding from a raging mob : 



INCIDENTS AT JOHNSTOWN. 351 

" Jesus, lover of my soul, 
Let me to thy bosom fly, 
While the raging waters roll, 
While the tempest still is high." 

A venerable man was seen upon his knees, with clasped 
hands, gazing steadfastly at the cross above St. John's 
Roman Catholic church ; while another, converted the 
previous winter, full of faith, and always rejoicing in 
hope, was last seen kneeling upon the roof of his house, 
riding with the torrent, and shouting, "Glory to God." 

The narratives of the survivors, whether from the 
upper, middle, or lower portions of the city, all alike serve 
to show that the suddenness of the doom could only be 
equalled by its awful horror. 

The Hulbert House, built of brick, and one of the finest 
hotels in Johnstown, stood in the upper portion of the 
city. There were about sixty persons in it at the time of 
the catastrophe, and of these, the lives of forty-nine were 
lost. Many of these were in the office, when an unusual 
whistling of engines was heard. Imagining a fire had 
broken out in the midst of the flood, they all ran to the 
upper stories, except the proprietor, the clerk, and one 
guest. Two or three minutes later, the clerk walked to 
the window, and looked across the Conemaugh in the di- 
rection of Prospect Hill, and seeing what he mistook for 
a great cloud of dust, exclaimed, " My God, the hill is 
falling ! " At that, the proprietor ran to the door, and 
looking up the street, realized at once the situation. 
Directing the other two to hasten upstairs and spread the 
alarm, he ran to the kitchen to warn the girls ; then flee- 
ing to the fourth floor, he reached it just as the building 
fell. One of the few survivors declares that the catastrophe 
overtook nearly all the guests no further advanced than 
to the foot of the stairway on the third floor, and as yet 
unapprized of the nature of their danger. 



352 GREAT DISASTERS. 

Rev. D. M. Miller, pastor of the Presbyterian church 
in East Conemaugh, had his home in Johnstown. To 
him and his family the deluge came without a moment's 
warning. They were in an upper room, fearing, suspect- 
ing nothing, till they saw houses not half a square away 
starting from their places, reeling and crackling onward 
over fences, telephone poles and fruit-trees, and jostling 
against each other. Before they could fly in any direc- 
tion, they were waist-deep in water. Beneath the lower 
sash which was raised, Mr. Miller sprang out upon some 
floating timbers, urging his wife to follow. She, how- 
ever, mounted the bed, which being instantly forced up to 
the ceiling she was almost smothered. The water had 
closed the opening beneath the sash, and up to her neck 
in water she now set herself desperately to effect an 
opening at the top of the window, but she only tore her 
hands in the vain attempt to wrench away the slat. Mr. 
Miller, by this time recovering from his first plunge, with 
one hand caught hold of the spout beneath the eaves, and 
with the other, battered through two panes of glass, cutting 
himself badly. Drawing up one foot, with it he now kicked 
out the sash, when his wife dived out under the lintel, 
expecting to reach footing on the roof of a small porch 
below. The porch, however, was gone, and she disap- 
peared deep beneath the turbid flood. A moment later, 
by some violent ebullition of the water, she was thrown 
to the surface, and at once laid hold on the spout. Mean- 
while, the house was drifting rapidly toward Stony Creek. 
When the vast number of houses adrift struck the hill 
beyond the stream there was a fearful rebound ; many 
houses were crushed to splinters, many were upset, and 
scores of clinging wretches were mangled, killed, or 
plunged into the water and drowned. The current, ar- 
rested by the hill, divided; a part turned to the left up 



INCIDENTS AT JOHNSTOWN. 353 

Stony Creek, carrying many houses nearly a mile ; part 
turned to the right, to add its freightage of life and ruin 
to the already tremendous gorge above the bridge, while 
between these currents a central portion was rolled back 
in the direction whence it came. On this portion Mr. 
Miller's house was carried, till wandering round and 
having described two-thirds of a complete circle, by the 
subsidence of the water it found rest at last not more than 
a hundred yards from its original position. During 
much of this journey the pastor and his wife, up to their 
necks in water, and battered and bruised incessantly by 
the terrible drift, were clinging to the spout. At last two 
of their neighbors being in some manner, incomprehen- 
sible to themselves, thrown upon the roof and sitting on 
the comb, after a time espied beneath the eaves the heads 
of the unfortunate couple. To creep down to the edge of 
the steep roof, slippery through incessant rain and recover 
the pastor and his wife was an undertaking fraught with 
extreme peril, yet these men, as did hundreds more in this 
awful hour, freely risked their lives in the effort to save 
others. A little later a woman and a boy were recovered, 
and brought to the same roof, on the comb of which six 
persons now sat until nightfall, when the house having 
ceased from its wanderings, they managed to creep into 
the attic. This being unfinished, there was no floor on 
which even the sick could lie ; so, in the dark, in then- 
torn and wet and filthy garments, through all the long, 
dreary hours of an endless night, through the forenoon 
of the following day, and until the middle of the after- 
noon, on a narrow board, they sat together until the res- 
cuers came. Then there was a laborious clambering over 
broken houses and great piles of wreck, a tramp of half 
a mile through mud and water, when they found at last 
rest and refuge and friends. Twenty-eight hours they 

23 



354 



GREAT DISASTERS 




INCIDENTS AT JOHNSTOWN. 355 

had passed ■without a wink of sleep or a morsel of food, 
while their wounds and bruises were such as for a time to 
render doubtful their recovery. 

Mr. Calliver, a machinist, had his dwelling in one of 
the upper wards of the city. His wife, an invalid, had 
not walked for seven years. He was watching the flood, 
and telling his neighbors that the worst was already past, 
when, looking up the river, he saw houses bounding from 
their places and skurrying towards him. He shouted to 
his family at once to flee to the attic, but, before they could 
reach it they were knee-deep in water. The house was 
floated,and borne swiftly away, but fortunately did not turn 
over. It drifted out of the main current, struck upon some- 
thing, and was held fast, while other buildings were drifted 
onward. Union street school house was near, and to this 
place, late in the afternoon, by clambering over the accu- 
mulated drift, it became possible to escape. Here they 
found themselves in the company of nearly two hundred 
others rescued in various ways. Some were crippled, some 
were shivering with cold, and all had lost their nearest 
and dearest friends. Many were in awful suspense con- 
cerning the fate of loved ones. A sleepless, endless night 
dragged its slow hours along, and when at last Mr. Calli- 
ver, watching anxiously from the roof, saw the first gleam 
in the east, he cried out in an ecstasy, " It is morning! it is 
morning ! " After deliverance came, being curious to know 
what it was that had so opportunely arrested his floating- 
house, he made examination, and found that, of several 
open cars that had drifted into the neighborhood, one had 
dropped endwise into a cellar, and his house driven upon 
the end that was elevated had been penetrated with the 
shaft of the brake-wheel, and securely held in that place. 

Rev. David J. Beale, D.D., pastor of the Presbyterian 
church, to whose authentic and thrillingly interesting book 



356 GKEAT DISASTERS. 

" Through the Johnstown Flood," we are principally in- 
debted for our statement of facts, and to which the reader 
is referred for a fuller account, records an experience, 
which, like those already narrated, serves to show that the 
visitation was as sudden as it was awful. His first intima- 
tion of the coming ruin was a roar, increasing like that of 
an approaching train, and a moment later the torrent had 
struck his residence. Urging in advance of him his family 
and two neighbors who were present, he rushed up stairs, 
and reaching the second floor found himself already waist- 
deep in water. At that instant, a man was shot by the 
force of the current through the window, and to the sud- 
den interrogatories, " Who are you ? Where did you come 
from?" breathless and strangling, he could only answer, 
"Woodvale" He had been carried on a floating roof a 
mile and a quarter, and as it violently struck the parson- 
age, he was pitched from his hold and dashed through the 
window. In another minute the whole company were in 
the third story, witnesses, blanched and mute, of the awful 
scene of destruction and death. 

They recognized many acquaintances and friends riding 
on to death. They saw two little children, almost nude, 
clinging to one roof; four young ladies, in agonized em- 
brace, clinging to another ; houses for squares north and 
west torn from their places, and the whole drawn onward, 
to be crushed and jammed in the gorge below. Mean- 
while, Capt. A. N. Hart, his wife and two children, were 
seen struggling in the wreckage which had drifted near 
the parsonage, and Mr. Beale, descending into the water in 
the second story, assisted them to enter through the win- 
dow. Their arrival in the garret increased to fifteen the 
number of persons there collected. 

The parsonage now began to show evident signs of giving 
way, and it was decided to abandon it. After an unsuc- 



INCIDENTS AT JOHN8TO 357 

cessful attempt to gain the roof, the whole party were safely 
passed by means of a rope from the highest window 
to a floating roof below. They had hoped to reach the 
church, which still stood secure, a short distance away; 
but, on making the attempt, they found themselves con- 
fronted with fifty feet of water which could not be crossed. 
They now began a perilous journey over wreckage to 
Alma Hall, half a square away. This was a four-story 
building, the largest and strongest in the city. Their way 
lay over logs and roofs and houses, fixed or moving box 
cars, and various debris which often concealed them from 
one another. One of the young ladies, crossing open wa- 
ter on a scantling, fell and disappeared, all but her float- 
ing hair, by which she was caught and recovered. About 
dark they gained the hall, and found no less than two hun- 
dred and sixty fortunate unfortunates like themselves, res- 
cued in wondrous ways from ghastly death. 

Then followed the long night of sleepless horror, un- 
illumined, save from the burning church, and from the 
horrible holocaust at the bridge. The suppressed moans of 
those with bruised bodies and broken limbs, the crying of 
little children, cold and wet and hungry, and without a 
place to lay their heads, the anxiety for loved ones, the 
mourning for them that were certainly lost, the moment- 
ary dread lest the building should give way and yet over- 
whelm all with sudden death, conspired to make it a night 
never to be forgotten. Morning came at last, and then, as 
the sun rose above the hills, might have been seen a curi- 
ous and mournful procession. Descending through a 
window, they walked and jumped, and crawled and clam- 
bered over several blocks, filled with broken buildings, 
cars, trees, furniture, bridges and dead bodies, till they 
reached the hill. 

What a spectacle of human misery was there presented ! 



358 



GREAT DISASTERS. 




INCIDENTS AT JOHNSTOWN. 359 

Fully three thousand people were gathered, weary, wet, 
cold, haggard, hungry, homeless, shoeless, hatless, coat- 
less, ragged, muddy, many almost naked, gazing in mute 
despair, in awful anguish that could shed no tear (for no 
tears were shed) upon miles of wreck, containing by the 
thousand the dead bodies of husbands, wives, parents, chil- 
dren, lovers, and precious friends. Could humanity be 
called to suffer more? 

Mr. Horace W. Hose, Esq., a prominent attorney 
about fifty years of age, had spent his life in Johns- 
town, and remembered distinctly all the great floods it 
had experienced. The highest he had seen was in 
1887, and he had little fear that ever he would see an- 
other higher. He was not alarmed when the water en- 
tered the lower story of his dwelling, but as he saw it 
advance above the wash board, and with its foul freight stain 
the beautiful paper recently put upon the wall, he was not 
without a feeling of sadness. He conversed pleasantly 
with his neighbors, and twitted their children with invita- 
tions to come across the way and make a friendly visit. 
Fifteen minutes before the catastrophe he was engaged in 
shooting rats, and continued the occupation until hearing 
a loud crash, he ran to the back part of his house, and saw 
that the water had broken down his carriage-house and was 
driving the carriage into the yard. At the same moment 
he heard cries, the alarm of a bell, and the loud screams 
of a steam whistle. Feeling that something awful must 
have happened, he ran to the third floor, followed by all 
his family, and looking out through a window, which per- 
mitted a view of nearly a mile up the Conemaugh, the 
awful fact was at once apparent. " I saw stretching from 
hill to hill, a great mass of timber, trees, roofs and debris 
of every sort, rapidly advancing, wrecking and carrying 
everything before it. It was then about the midst of what 



360 GREAT DISASTERS. 

was known as the Gautier Works, a department of the 
Cambria Iron Works, which covered perhaps ten or eleven 
acres of ground. A dense cloud hung over the line of 
the rolling debris, which I then supposed was the steam 
and soot which had arisen from hundreds of fires in the 
Gautier Works as the waves rolled over them. I stood 
and looked as the resistless tide moved on, and saw brick 
buildings crushed in an instant pass out of sight, while 
frame tenements were quickly crushed to atoms. 

<# Members of my family asked me if there was no 
escape. I answered, ' No ; this means death to us all.' 
My wife with blanched face said, ' Won't our big strong 
house stand ? ' I replied deliberately : 'No, Maggie ; 
no building can stand this awful jam, and we are all lost.' 

"The press of the heaving, surging mass rolled steadily 
on, and in less than three minutes, as nearly as I can esti- 
mate time, from the moment I saw the front of the angry 
torrent it was upon us. The great Municipal building 
above me fell with a crash. The stately dwelling of my 
neighbor, John Dibert, was broken to atoms. I walked rapid- 
ly to the southeast window, and saw the front of the brick 
dwelling above and adjoining mine, crushed to rubbish. 
Several persons were floating directly down Main street, in 
front of me ; a large frame building directly opposite me 
careened, at the attic windows of which I saw a number of 
ladies, one of whom held an infant in her arms ; there was a 
crash, a sensation of falling, a consciousness that I was in the 
water, and all was dark. A moment later, I felt the press of 
a heavy shock, a sense of excruciating pain, involving my 
right breast, shoulder and arm. The thought came upon 
me that I was being crushed to death, that I could not 
long endure the agony I then suffered, and that death 
would come soon. I watched for the change, expecting in 
a moment to know the reality of eternity. I heard the 



ENCIDENT8 AT JOHNSTOWN. 361 

moan of my eldest son, who was at my side when the crash 
came. 

" I felt myself struggling, with my left hand clutching 
at something, I know not what. I heard the voice of my 
youngest son, as I thought, imploring me to aid him. I 
told him I was powerless to succor him. A moment later 
I realized that he was endeavoring to have me reach a 
higher elevation, when I told him my whole right side 
was crushed ; he came to my relief and aided me in get- 
ting upon a fragment of the slate roof. A moment after, 
a little boy whom I had sheltered, appeared and informed 
me that my wife was drowned ; he had barely made this 
announcement when I saw my only daughter, June, rise 
up out of the water among the debris to perhaps her waist, 
and immediately sink out of sight. As she sank, I saw 
my wife rise out of the water to about her waist, and al- 
most immediately sink out of sight ; a moment after, they 
rose together, and I saw my son Winter, a lad of twenty 
years, a strong, robust person, and heard him say, ' Ma, 
hold on to me, and I can save you.' I was lying on my 
side, perhaps twenty or twenty-five feet distant from where 
my wife, daughter and son were struggling, the skin torn 
from the right side of my face, the blood flowing profusely 
from the wound, the skin torn from the back of my left 
hand, my right collar-bone broken, my shoulder-blade 
fractured, the ribs crushed in upon my lung, my right 
arm from shoulder to wrist lying limp on my side, power- 
less to give aid or assistance to my loved ones. At this 
moment a young man seemed to shoot up and out of the 
debris at my side ; I realized that he was an acquaintance, 
but could not name him. I at once, however, addressed 
him, saying, ' Young man, won't you go and help Winter 
save my wife and daughter ? I am helpless ; my whole 
right side and arm are crushed.' He made no reply, but 



362 



GREAT msASTERS. 




THE BATTLE! WITH THE WATERS. 



INCIDENTS AT JOHNSTOWN. 363 

at once hastened across the debris, and aided in relieving 
my wife from the timbers in which she was pinioned. 
Then he immediately disappeared from my sight ; but I 
afterward learned he was Harry Philips, who was reared 
in Johnstown, was then practicing his profession of den- 
tistry in Pittsburg ; was home on a visit, and in the house 
of Dr. L. T. Beam, and was the only person who escaped 
with his life, while his mother, niece, nephew and brother- 
in-law were lost in the flood. My eldest son had disap- 
peared. I believed I had heard his dying moan. All 
the other inmates of my bouse at the time it was 
struck, were now floating on different fragments of houses, 
and being rushed with fearful velocity in a westerly 
course to and across the Stony Creek River. 

" They saw a stout roof on the edge of the debris and 
succeeded in reaching it ; an old lady on bended knees 
and holding with her hands, floated by on a shutter, and 
Winter assisted her to gain the roof; the current suddenly 
turned and swept them rapidly up Stony Creek, a distance 
of half a mile ; they came to rest above Morris street in 
the Fifth Ward, and lay for a considerable time ; some 
inexplicable force then carried them across the river, and 
they lay for a while in the mouth of Franklin street; the 
Catholic church was on fire, and the town clock struck 
five ; a cold and pitiless rain poured down upon them ; 
the current now changed and buildings and wreckage were 
borne rapidly down the stream ; as houses were broken to 
pieces, clinging wretches with wild shrieks sank to watery 
graves ; the two sons were separated from the remainder 
of the family on the roof; it drifted once more down the 
stream, was struck by a heavier building and pushed upon 
the bank; over various drift they climbed till they 
reached a three-story brick which stood intact; they en- 
tered it just as the town clock struck six — two awful hours, 



364 GREAT DISASTERS. 

and yet no member of the family lost. Happier far their 
fate than that of many others. The two boys returned 
to their parents at four o'clock the next day." 

These incidents will suffice. Thousands of the same sort 
might be given. No wonder that many were crazed with 
grief. One woman, wife and mother, sole survivor of a 
happy family, was found sitting in the wreck, holding in 
her arms her family clock which she had found. She told 
her story without a tear. Her mind was unbalanced. A 
man who had never been known to touch liquor was found 
the day after the flood, reeling to the bridge, drunk and 
raving, determined to drown himself. In agony at the loss 
of all he held dear, he had taken to drink, that he might 
remember his misery no more ; but in vain : whisky could 
not destroy his terrible memories. Talmage in a let- 
ter to the New York World, said : " Such an ava- 
lanche of horrors never slipped upon any American city. 
Horrors piled on horrors, woe augmenting woe ; bank- 
ruptcy, orphanage, widowhood, childlessness, obliterated 
homesteads, gorged cemeteries and scenes so excruciating 
it is a marvel that any one could look upon them and 
escape insanity *•**'* 

" Was the work of devastation as great as I supposed ? 
Far worse. Types can not tell it. Only the eye can 
make revelation. But the worst part of it can not be seen. 
The heart-wreck caused by the sudden departure of so 
many can be open only to one eye, and that the All-Seeing. 
Think of one family of fourteen all dead except one, and 
that the wife and mother, and she the witness of their 
drowning. I saw the grave trench in which two hundred 
and sixty were buried, and the whole graveyard like a 
national cemetery, in which the unrecognized dead have a 
particular number placed above them and are recorded in 



INCIDENTS AT JOHNSTOWN. 365 

the undertaker's rooms with a description of the body and 
clothes." 

On many a life a shadow has been cast that will never 
be lifted. Many a heart will ache until it breaks. One 
who had lost wife and children and was alone, whose ver- 
ses and whose name the world has never heard, more than 
thirty years ago wrote the following most touchingly beau- 
tiful lines, which will find an echo in the hearts of thou- 
sands of survivors of the Johnstown flood, as well as among 
countless millions of others in every age of the world : 

Down by the cedar sitting, 

Lonely and sad and still, 
Watching the shadows flitting 

Over the distant hill. 
Yearning for by-gone hours, 

Never again to come ; 
Longing for beauteous flowers , 

Never again to bloom. 

Ever there flits before me 

A shadowy form and face ; 
Ever it hovers o'er me, 

Wearing a nameless grace. 
Above my brow there lingers 

A breath like summer air ; 
Unseen and loving fingers 

Stray through my tangled hair. 

Silence, slow creeping nigh me, 

Out from the leafy shade, 
Bringeth the dead hours by me, 

And rests on the darkening glade. 

O ye beloved of spring time, 

Can ye come back no more ? 
Bending I trace your footsteps 

Over the distant shore ; 
Down to the misty river, 

Into the depths of death, 



366 GREAT DISASTERS. 

Seeking your presence ever. 
Praying with sobbing breath, 
"Can ye come back no more i n 

Echoing clear from the unseen shore, 
Answer sweet voices " Xo more, no more ! w 

O for the pearly gates 

Of the golden nightless plain. 

"Where your gentle spirit waits 
For the hour we meet again. 

Out from the darkness, soft and plain, 
Comes the glad echo, " We meet again." 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

RELIEF MEASURES. 

" Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase) 
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace, 
And saw within the moonlight of his room, 
Making it rich and like a lily in bloom. 
An angel writing in a book of gold : 
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold. 
And to the presence in the room he said, 
" What writest thou ? " The vision raised its head. 
And with a look made all of sweet accord, 
Answered : " The names of those who love the Lord.'* 

H And is mine one ? '" said Abou. '• Xay, not so," 
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low. 
But cheerily still, and said, li I pray thee then 
Write me as one who loves his fellow men." 

The angel wrote and vanished. The next night 

It came again with a great wakening light 

And showed the names of whom love of God had blessed. 

And lo, Ben Adhem's name led all the res: '. " 

IT goes without saying that the destitution and suffering 
occasioned bv the flood were fearful. Evervwhere 
niisrht be seen hundreds of Bad-eyed, disconsolate, almost 
famished creatures, groping about the wreck, almost un- 
conscious of present necessities by reason of present woe. 
Scores were compelled to drag their precious dead from 
the wreck and bury them with their own hands — a trying 
task. Other scores found never a trace of many whom 
they sought. Hundreds of telegrams of anxious inquiries 
will never be answered. 

The pressing necessities of the hungry people soon 
drove many to seek escape from the place. Yet all rail- 
roads were damaged, and in Johnstown itself one could 

367 



3H8 GREAT DISASTERS. 

hardly get about the streets. A stranger describes it as 
it appeared on June 1 : 

"Johnstown proper was partly a lake, partly several 
small streams, partly a vast sandy plain, and partly clus- 
ters of more or less ruined houses. Around, among, 
between, inside and on top of these houses, wherever the 
rushing torrent had been checked, were piled masses of 
wreckage; trunks of mighty trees, household furniture, 
houses whole and in fragments, bridges, locomotives and 
railroad cars, hundreds of tons of mud and gravel. 
Thickly strewn through it all were hundreds of corpses 
and carcasses. The only communication between this 
section and the Pennsylvania Railroad and the village of 
Peelerville on the north, and Kernville on the south, was 
across swollen torrents in skiffs, which required constant 
bailing to keep them above water. From the Stone 
Bridge of the Pennsylvania Road, for a distance of half a 
mile, no river could be seen, simply a dense mass of drift 
from twenty to fifty feet deep, apparently inextricable, 
bound together with miles of wire, here blazing and there 
smoldering, and enveloping the bridge in a cloud of nausea- 
ting vapor and smoke, giving unmistakable evidence of the 
presence of burning flesh. Not a thoroughfare was passa- 
ble for a team, and very few for a horse. Locomotion 
was difficult, the mud was deep, the streets obstructed 
often to the roofs of houses, the rain was incessant. 

" How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, 
How complicate, how wonderful is man ; 
How passing wonder He who made him such, 
Who centered in our make such strange extremes 
From different natures marvelously mixed." 

The flood quickly called forth the best and the worst 
exhibitions of human nature. We shall mention first the 
evil, as a back-ground against which the good may stand 
more conspicuous. We believe that to most men it will 



RELIEF MEASURES. 369 

be simply incomprehensible that anybody should think of 
adding so much as the weight of a hair to the calamities 
of Johnstown, as they were seen on the morning of that 
first day of June. Ghouls were quick to enter, snatching 
from the living, robbing the bodies of the dead. Johns- 
town doubtless had her complement of thieves, and these 
were speedily reinforced by many more — crooks and jail- 
birds, pickpockets and burglars, from cities like Baltimore, 
Philadelphia and Pittsburg ; for " where the carcass is, 
there will the eagles be gathered together." Residents 
guarding silverware and other valuables were, in some 
instances, overpowered in broad daylight and their goods 
taken away from before their eyes. These crimes were 
diligently laid at the door of the Hungarians, but better 
knowledge acquitted them of the charge and proved that 
they were not more guilty than others. 

The American, accustomed by republican training to 
regard himself as the chief source of law, is never slow to 
take things into his own hands in cases of extremity. We 
are told that a few of these ghouls were summarily dealt 
with; and under the circumstances the most conservative 
find it hard to condemn the grief-crazed men. One cor- 
respondent asked Deputy Sheriff "Chall" Dick if the 
reports of summary execution were true. Chall replied 
slowly : 

" There are some men whom their friends will never 
again see alive." 

" Well, now, how many did you shoot ? " was the next 
question. 

" Say," said Chall. " On Saturday morning I was the 
first to make my way to Sang Hollow, to see if I could not 
get some food for people made homeless by the flood. 
There was a car-load of provisions there, but the vandals 
were on hand. They broke into the car, and in spite of 
24 



370 GREAT DISASTERS. 

my protestations carried off box after box of supplies. I 
only got half a wagon load. They were too many for 
me. I know when I have no show. There was no show 
there, and I got out. 

"As I was leaving Sang Hollow and got up the mountain 
road a piece, I saw two Hungarians and one woman engaged 
in cutting the fingers off of corpses to get some rings. 
Well, I got off that team and — well, there are three peo- 
ple who were not drowned and who are not alive." 

" Where are the bodies ? " 

" Ain't the river handy there ? " 

Another form of robber appeared in the relic-hunter. 
He is a phenomenon inexplicable — at least to the writer 
of these pages. Why men should think to chip off pieces 
of the Washington Monument, or from Lincoln's coffin, or 
from the granite sarcophagus in the great pyramid, and 
carry them home and put them in a cabinet, and call peo- 
ple to admire them, without thereby simply advertising 
themselves as vandals, passes comprehension. Why a chip 
from Johnstown should be better than the same kind of a 
chip from any other place, no man can tell. But the world 
has always had a good stock and store of this kind of fools, 
well described by our neglected and forgotten poet, Robert 
Pollok, as men who roamed about the world searching for 
pieces of old pottery and the like, and 

"Wondered why shells were found upon the mountain-tops, 
And wondered not at that more wondrous still, 
Why shells were found at all." 

These relic-hunters, commonly of genteel appearance, 
were in force at Johnstown, picking up knives, forks, silver 
spoons, communion vessels — anything they could call 
fools like themselves to gape at because it came from 
Johnstown, and sometimes judiciously preferring as me- 
mentoes the things that were of greater value, 



RELIEF MEASURES. 



371 




372 GREAT DISASTERS. 

There were professional thieves who entered the morgues 
and identified, with expressions of sorrow, their dear de- 
parted dead, strangers never seen before, in order that they 
might secure the valuables found on their persons. There 
were others who offered their services for the recovery of 
the dead, and who were placed upon the details sent out 
for that purpose, and plundered many corpses before the 
arrival of Mann's detectives pointed them out as the worst 
of thieves and robbers. 

Besides these there were sleek scoundrels, too base and 
black for respectability even in the pit, who approached 
weeping, orphaned, beautiful young girls with alluring 
offers of jewelry and fine clothes and delightful homes in 
great cities. Their object has no need to be stated. 

It is pleasant to turn from these few ghoulish and de- 
graded human reptiles to the mighty army of noble men 
and women who succored Johnstown. 

The story of the help rendered, how much, by whom, 
and in what ways can not be detailed in this place. It 
will be enough to give a brief and general statement, w r hile 
for full particulars, even to the long list of the dead, 
known and unknown, the reader must be referred to Dr. 
Beale's most interesting book. 

The faults and evils of government have been conspicu- 
ous since man was upon the earth. The contemplation of 
these has turned some shallow-brained people into anar- 
chists, who think the ideal state of the race must be one in 
which there is no government at all. 

There was no government in Johnstown while the flood 
was sweeping it away. All human laws were then sus- 
pended, for there was no human power that could enforce 
them. It is curious and instructive, in a condition of 
complete anarchy, to note the spontaneous movements 
towards organized government — movements simply evoked 



RELIEF MEASURES. 373 

by the popular need. Government was introduced into 
Alma Hall almost before the sun had set on that dreadful 
day. Two hundred and sixty-four men, women and chil- 
dren, from various directions clambering out of the debris, 
had been gathered there. They were wretched enough 
already, but disorder would only add to their woes, and 
for the sake of order, and to feel that the strongest and 
wisest were at the helm, they were ready to submit them- 
selves to command. Accordingly, a meeting was at once 
called on the stairway to elect a director to control the 
whole building and one of the stories, and two subordi- 
nates to take charge of the other two stories. Orders 
were at once issued that there should be no lights, lest the 
escaping natural gas should explode, and that all persons 
having spirituous liquors should surrender them to the 
directors. These orders were cheerfully obeyed. 

As this company was wending its mournful way the 
next morning to Adam street, Dr. Beale saw a man tak- 
ing some valuables, and ordered him to put them down. 
With this hint as to the capabilities of bad men, he sent 
a boy a little later to the nearest telegraph station with a 
message to Governor Beaver to send the military. The 
response came soon in the presence of the National Guard, 
the services of whose officers and men were, in almost 
every way, of inestimable value. 

But the necessity for government was instant, and could 
not await the coming of a National Guard. The commu- 
nity called Johnstown consisted of seven straggling bor- 
oughs, each with its own officers. Some of these were 
dead, all were scattered and paralyzed, while furthermore, 
the common calamity demanded common action, and this 
called for a single government instead of seven. Accord- 
ingly, before the sun was high in the heavens on that 
first day of June, government had been organized. Ac- 



374 GREAT DISASTERS. 

cording to our Declaration of Independence, it must have 
been a lawful government, for it had for its basis the con- 
sent of the governed. 

But it was not a republican government ; it was an 
absolute monarchy — Charles L. Dick, Esq., was elected 
generalissimo to direct all matters according to his wil', — 
the best government in the world if always there were a 
wise and good man at the head ; for the wisdom of one 
man is better than the folly of a multitude. 

It makes one proud of his race as he watches this 
stricken community in the midst of overwhelmning sorrow 
and loss taking action immediately for preservation and 
recovery. Barbarians would not have done it; Asiatics 
would not have done it; nor would anybody else have 
done it so quickly and so well as Anglo-Saxon English- 
speaking republicans, full of energy, resource, and indom- 
itable courage, and habituated to the idea of a " govern- 
ment of the people, /or the people, and by the people." 

Avoiding details let us see in brief what was done. 

Within eighteen hours after the flood, there was a force 
of three hundred qualified policemen guarding the vaults 
of the First National and Dibert's banks, and patrolling 
the town. A few were armed with shot-guns, the most 
with base ball clubs extracted from a wrecked store. The 
size of their batons was an indication that they were not 
on dress parade, but were equipped for war. Committees 
were quickly appointed on finances, on supplies, on morgues, 
on the removal of dead animals and debris, on police, on 
hospitals ; and these committees entered on their respec- 
tive duties without an hour's delay. Farmers and others 
were now crowding to behold the ruin, and there were many 
with hearts to sympathize and hands to aid. Dr. Wm. 
Caldwell, one of the oldest and best known merchants in 
i he place, met the wondering comers and engaged many of 



KELIEF MEASURES. 3?5 

them for service in the removal of the wreckage and the 
recovery of the dead. Details were at once constituted 
and sent forth under proper leaders for these purposes. 
Within a brief while, Charles Zimmerman had removed 
more than two hundred dead animals, and Thos. L. John- 
son, his assistant committeeman, one of the owners of the 
great plant at Moxham, had made visible progress in clear- 
ing the streets of debris. 

A crying and instant need was a hospital. Before the 
flood there was only one hospital in Johnstown. This was 
built by the Cambria Iron Company for the use of their 
own men. This hospital was now almost instantly filled 
and running over ; but before sunset on this memorable 
Saturday, June 1st, the committee had opened another. 
Telephonic communication was broken, but a boy was 
sent on horseback to Shoyestown with a message to 
Pittsburg for hospital equipments — cots, mattrasses, pil- 
lows, medicines and other necessities ; and such was the 
energy of all concerned that by two o'clock on Sunday, 
less than twenty-four hours from the sending of the mes- 
sage, the equipment was in Johnstown. At that time 
every bench and counter and even the floor was crowded 
with the sick and wounded from all parts of the city. 

It is impossible to describe the varied movements of that 
dreadful day. There was little shelter and less food, death 
everywhere, and some doubtless imprisoned in heaps of 
wreck, and not yet dead, but dying of wounds, or of cold 
and exhaustion. The first patient in the Bedford street 
hospital had been taken up, presumably dead, and carried 
to the morgue ; there he was found to be yet alive, was re- 
moved to the hospital and died of congestion the next day. 
The claims of the dead and of the living seemed to be 
equally urgent. Many of the living, for food and shelter, 
pushed to the country ; the farmers received them with 



376 



GREAT DISASTERS 




RELIEF MEASURES. 377 

open doors. They sent wagon loads of provisions to the 
valley of death; the dairymen came with milk and dis- 
tributed it freely ; but what was this among so many ? It 
is needless to say that the flood, even where buildings had 
escaped wreck, had overflowed cellars and lower stories 
and destroyed or badly damaged almost everything eat- 
able in the city. 

Not a few of those who survived the flood are notable 
for their untiring and abundant labors. It was no time 
for perpetuating sectarian differences. Dr. Beale pays a 
warm tribute to Father Davin, a Catholic priest, who stood 
at his post, laboring with superhuman energy, though con- 
stantly urged to take even a short rest. But he could not 
rest in view of so much misery. He and Dr. Beale turned 
their respective churches into morgues, and labored like 
heroes, incessantly. Father Davin's health gave way un- 
der the terrible strain, and he finally went to the moun- 
tains; but it was too late. He died of overwork and 
exhaustion. 

Nor must the work of that much abused fraternity, the 
newspaper reporters be forgotten. None but reporters can 
appreciate the difficulties under which those men worked; 
and one, a pale, earnest, sympathetic little Philadelphian, 
toiled on till his health failed. He died at the sea shore, 
whither he had gone to recuperate. These men we 
must thank for the prompt and full reports sent through- 
out the country, stirring it to prompt and energetic meas- 
ures of relief. 

The advantages of Christian over Asiatic civilization 
are never more apparent than when the calamity of some 
calls for sympathy and help of all the rest. Then, in an 
hour, the news is borne to every city and hamlet in a 
broad continent, in another hour the press has thrown it 
off in millions of sheets, and every street is vocal with the 



378 GREAT DISASTERS. 

cry of the newsboy proclaiming the disaster, millions of 
hearts are throbbing with sympathy, voices from opposite 
sides of great cities are talking to each other over the tele- 
phone, a meeting is called and quickly assembled, counsel 
is taken, performance is prompt, and before the day is done> 
the railroad train, bearing the necessary forms of aid, is fly- 
ing with the speed of the wind to the relief of the sufferers. 

Not often, even in a Christian land, has relief been so 
prompt or so bountiful as it was to Johnstown. Pitts- 
burg read the news in the papers of Saturday morning. 
The Mayor called a meeting for one o'clock. It was 
crowded to overflowing, for the interest was intense. A 
committee was appointed, and work began instantly. By 
four o'clock nearly twenty cars were ready. Seventy vol- 
unteer aids were on board — all that could be taken — and 
the train was flying towards Johnstown. At 10:30 p. M. 
Sang Hollow, four miles from the scene of death, was 
reached. Here three-quarters of a mile of track had been 
washed entirely away, and the train stopped. But the 
men from Pittsburg stopped not. They sprang out, and 
trip after trip through the mud and dark, in the use of 
hands and shoulders, they bore onward their precious bur- 
dens of food for the starving brothers and sisters. Long 
before daylight, the installment of provisions — a car load 
and a half — was deposited at the Stone Bridge. Further 
than this it was impossible to go. The flood had broken 
the embankment beyond the bridge and a furious river a 
hundred feet wide was sweeping through. 

But while these valiant relievers were struggling for- 
ward under boxes and parcels, the railroad management 
was working a veritable miracle. Men and material were 
placed on the ground, the grade was restored, the track 
was laid, and at seven o'clock the next morning the train 
was quietly standing at the Stone Bridge ! 



RELIEF MEASURES. 379 

Was ever human energy more conspicuous, or in a bet- 
ter cause ? Some corporations must have souls — at least, 
the Pennsylvania Railroad — for this triumph was stimu- 
lated not by self-interest, buthy the interests of thousands 
dead or ready to perish. And it was General Superin- 
tendent Pitcairn of the Pennsylvania Road who moved 
the mayor to call the Pittsburg meeting. 

The Baltimore & Ohio Road also signalized its achieve- 
ments and generosity. By Monday morning it had entered 
the south side of Johnstown, bringing relief, or exit to 
the suffering people. Superintendent Patton called on the 
villages and towns along the road to load as many cars as 
they pleased, and they would be transported to Johns- 
town without charge. The services of both the Baltimore 
& Ohio and the Pennsylvania Roads were of inestimable 
value, and from first to last, in a spirit of true philan- 
throphy, they co-operated with the efforts for the relief of 
a stricken people. 

The labors of the Pittsburg committee knew no pause 
nor rest for ten days, until the State, whose duty it was in 
so great a calamity, stepped in, and through the Flood 
Commission, took hold and continued the work. Even 
then their labors did not cease, but were continued in 
hearty co-operation with the officials appointed by the 
State. During those ten days from the first of June to 
the eleventh, they had placed in the field under the most 
efficient management between 6,000 and 7,000 laborers, 
they had supplied a population of about 30,000 people 
with food ; they had looked after sanitation and hospitals 
and morgues; they had accomplished much in the way of 
opening the streets and clearing the properties of filth and 
debris deposited by the flood. They had been the minis- 
ters not only of the charities of the twin cities, Alleghany 
and Pittsburg, but of other and more distent cities. 



380 GREAT DISASTERS. 

These, recognizing the integrity and efficiency of the 
Pittsburg committee, directed their benefactions to them, 
with the request that they would control their administra- 
tion. A total of $831,295 passed into their hands; of 
this $560,000 was turned over to the Flood Commission, 
the balance having been expended by themselves. Of 
this total, $250,770 was contributed by the cities of Pitts- 
burgh and Alleghany. 

In the ladies' committee, Pittsburg developed another 
agency that was vastly beneficial. Established in rooms 
of the Second Presbyterian church, they began work on 
the 4th of June, and their doors thereafter were open day 
and night. A special committee was always on duty and 
waiting to receive every train, both of the Baltimore & 
Ohio and the Pennsylvania Roads. These brought scores 
and hundreds of refugees who had lost everything, and 
who did not doubt that in Pittsburg, at the hands of peo- 
ple they had never seen, they would receive sympathy 
and aid. They were met at the depots, conducted to the 
rooms of the committee, fed and clothed, and sent to com- 
fortable quarters till they could see a way to provide for 
themselves. Many were seeking homes in the country or 
cities beyond, and the railways generously furnished free 
transportation to all who were certified by the ladies' 
committee. Situations were procured for many, and 
many fragments of families, seeking permanent homes 
in Pittsburg, were aided even to the anticipation of their 
winter supplies. 

Philadelphia has long been an example to other cities, 
in that it has had a permanent committee of relief, ever 
ready with men and means to answer the call of some 
unusual distress. At the announcement of the great 
calamity, this committee was at once summoned by the 
mayor. R. M. McWade, city editor of the Public Ledger -, 



RELIEF MEASURES. 



381 



a gentleman who had raised $25,000 and sped with it to 
Charleston, South Carolina, at the time of the earthquake, 
was present, and at once moved the appropriation of 




CONEMAUGH VIADUCT. 



$5,000, saying that when the facts should become known, 
ten times the sum would be required. Others did not 
wait for organized effort, but hastened with medicines, 
surgical instruments, shoes and carloads of prepared food 



382 GllEAT DISASTERS. 

— bread, butter, bacon, cheese, coffee — to the field of disas- 
ter. Personal contributions were many and liberal. On 
the 11th of June the committee placed $500,000 subject 
to the order of Governor Beaver. As late as the 4th of 
August the committee was induced through Dr. Pan coast 
to appropriate $10,000 to the Red Cross Hospital in 
Johnstown. Philadelphia is truly a city of "brotherly 
love." Newsboys and bootblacks anxiously offered their 
mites; aud in the penitentiary hundreds of convicts gave 
eagerly of the- hard-earned pennies gained by working 
extra time, till the warden placed a limit upon the amount 
each might give. The total contributions of Philadelphia 
amounted to nearly $800,000. 

New York went promptly to work on the 2nd of June. 
The churches beginning. Monday, the 3d, liberal contri- 
tions were placed in the hands of a committee, by individ- 
uals and corporations. The poor or bad boys in the 
charity and reform schools were an example to many, for 
they of their penury cast in all that they had. The boys 
in the House of Refuge on Randall's Island, gave $258. 22. 
Perhaps such lads may be yet worth saving. 

The total amount contributed by the City of New York 
was very close to $1,000,000. 

Boston gave upwards of $500,000, Chicago about $200,- 
000, Baltimore gave liberally, and received and cared for 
a multitude of refugees. Fifteen hundred rendered home- 
less by floods at Johnstown and elsewhere arrived in Balti- 
more in one day. 

We may not detail further. The reader who desires the 
fullest account of what was done, and how, and by whom, 
must be referred to Dr. Beale's most interesting book. It 
may suffice in this place to say, that contributions were 
forwarded, not only from the principal cities and from 
every State in the Union, but from foreign countries. Ire- 



RELIEF MEASURES. 383 

land sent $18,252.21'; England, $33,15836; Canada, $4,- 
454.64; Mexico, $130.40; Turkey, $876.57 ; Italy $9.46; 
Austria, $481.70; Germany, 34,199.36; Prussia, $100; 
Wales, $68.60; Saxony, $2,637.20 ; Persia, $50 ; France, 
$24,511.13; Australia, $1,251.12. Total, $120,187.79. 
These figures prove that there are men everywhere who 
love their fellow men, and that the whole world is of kin. 

The total loss in the Conemaugh valley was between 
$8,000,000 and $9,000,000 ; the total bestowment about 
$3,000,000. The loss of life is estimated variously ; from 
4,000 to 10,000. It will never be definitely known. 

The aid of the sympathetic public — was it charity ? 
No, it was duty. I owe to help my fellow man in distress 
just as much as I owe to pay my debts, and sometimes 
more. Mercy is due to men no less than justice. "If 
any man seeth his brother have need and shutteth up the 
bowels of his compassion against him, how dwelleth the 
love of God in him?" We might add : How dwelleth 
the love of man in him ? He that does not love his fellow 
men is not entitled to a place among them, any more than 
fleas or serpents are entitled a place in human beds. 

" That man may last, but never lives, 
Who all receives, but nothing gives ; 
Whom none can love, whom none can thank, 
Creation's blot, creation's blank." 



CHAPTER XIX. 

FAMINE AND PESTILENCE. 

" Then— see those million worlds which burn and roll, 
Around us— their inhabitants beheld 
My spher'ed light wave in wide Heaven ; the sea 
Was lifted by strange tempests, and new fire 
From earthquake rifted mountains of bright snow 
Shook its portentous hair beneath heaven's frowns, 
Lightning and inundation vexed the plains, 
Blue thistles bloomed in cities ; foodless toads 
Within voluptuous chambers panting crawled ; 
When plague had fallen on man and beast and worm, 
And famine : and black blight on herb and tree. 
****** 

* * and the thin air, my breath, was stained, 
With the contagion of a mother's hate, 
Breathed on her child's destroyer." 

^VlGNS and wonders, grave omens, strange portents, 
A-' have by the ignorant and superstitious been believed 
to precede and presage the approach of famine and pesti- 
lence. Comets have terrified the multitudes ; the rabble 
has quailed at the aurora, and blanched with fear at the 
"ighr, of colored rain and snow. And yet nothing is 
clearer than that famine is the result of the simplest 
meteorological causes. A deficiency in rainfall is suffi- 
cient cause — is almost the only cause. Elsewhere we 
have noted how dependent we are upon the winds and 
clouds, and we need spend no further explanation of their 
causes and variations. 

Owing to the decidedly local character of our own rains, 
the probability of a general famine in this country is very 
slight, though local droughts are of continual occurrence. 
Europe has been affected with serious famines at various 

384 



FAMINE AND PESTILENCE. 385 

periods ; but the greatest " harvest of death " lias been in 
Oriental lands. During the present century there have 
been two or three severe famines in Asia Minor, the last 
but two or three years since. But it is in India and 
China, with their overcrowded populations and lack of 
facilities for inter-communication, that famine becomes 
most terrible in its ravages. The story of one is that of 
another ; a deficient rainfall, a failure of the rice crop, a 
multitude eating grass, dead leaves, straw, offal — millions 
starving. As these lines are written come reports of great 
dearth in some provinces in Japan. 

One of the best known famines of recent date is the 
great Bengal famine of 1866. When the rice crop failed 
the British government at once used every possible means 
to facilitate the importation of rice and established large 
systems of public works that the people might earn money 
wherewith to buy. Yet it was but the chief of many 
great employes. Great companies pushed great projects. 
The customary wages remained steady; but rice had 
trebled in price. Hence, even by doing double work the 
people could not procure their usual food. And no allow- 
ance had been made for the scores of isolated villages 
where the news of relief measures penetrated not. So 
the employed grew weaker continually and less able to 
labor and earn ; those unemployed perished by hundreds. 
Private charity supported thousands ; for the Hindoo 
dreads the beggars' curse as much as the loss of caste. 
The women added their labors to those of the laboring 
husbands, but this did not suffice to support the weaken- 
ing families. 

Then government charity was broached ; but it was at 
once seen that efforts in this direction would cause the ces- 
sation of individual charity. Every village looks after its 
own poor ; every noble family continues to dispense alms, 

25 



386 GREAT DISASTERS. 

even when every vestige of wealth and greatness is gone. 
It would not do to take steps that might instantly suspend 
this work. Yet the famished crowds grew daily greater, 
and the residents of the European quarter of Calcutta 
were horrified by the influx of thousands of squalid crea- 
tures in the last extremity of hunger. 

At this crisis another factor came into play. Every 
pious Hindoo merchant writes at the top of his day-book 
each day the name of the divinity whose favor he courts, 
and immense sums — even millions of dollars — are spent 
in the annual celebration in honor of Kali, the especial 
favorite of Bengal. A wealthy and humane Hindoo mer- 
chant suggested that Kali would be better pleased if her 
celebration fund were used to relieve her starving wor- 
shippers. The idea became popular at once ; and the fund, 
promptly swelled by the exigencies of the case, aided 
greatly in the relief of the destitute. When'we remember 
that Kali is a fiend incarnate, who delights inhuman blood, 
and wears a necklace of skulls, we can but consider the 
suggestion of the pious merchant as savoring of the ludi- 
crous. 

Another objection to government charity was in the fact 
that the government could only hope to establish a few 
great central depots. Again, the Hindoo does not dis- 
criminate between the professional beggars, fakirs, hermits, 
yogis, and those whom we consider more deserving : and 
such discrimination as it was certain the government would 
make would only render it odious, and probably cause 
grave disturbances. So the government lost three weeks 
when it should have been actively at work. Meanwhile 
English residents were spending liberally their means in 
private relief depots. 

The government found its way out by making quietly 
large grants to rlie private relief committees established. 



FAMTNE AND PESTILENCE. 387 

But it was two or three months ere the best scheme was 
adopted. Rice could be imported in abundance. How to 
place it within the purchasing power of the people was the 
problem. The government turned merchant, and estab- 
lished depots where the laborer could buy at a price within 
his means. But while placing the market rate within 
reach of the needy one-third, the rate for the remainder 
must not be disturbed, or the merchants would be antagon- 
ized. It was easily accomplished. The market was opened 
but a short time each day ; and the " respectable " Hindoo 
would never expose himself or his family to be jostled by 
the hungry labor-stained multitude that at once thronged 
the places. And public opinion, all-powerful in little 
Bengali towns, strongly condemned any one who without 
good reason, bought at the relief depots. 

By June, every one was anxious to know if the rains 
would come and insure the September crops — there are two 
rice harvests each year. Thousands of sacrifices were 
offered, and sometimes human beings were offered. But 
the rains came, and the fall brought abundant crops. 

The total loss of life was about 1,250,000, of whom one- 
fourth starved outright, while the remainder perished from 
disease and pestilence resulting from the scarcity of food. 
A famine in the same region in 1769 carried off 6,000,000; 
but then the government did nothing, and after the scourge 
immense tracts of cultivated laud returned to their original 
wilderness. The reverse was the result in 1866. The 
methodical work of the government and the great corpor- 
ations left the land far more improved than ever before ; 
with the increasing facilities for communication and trans- 
portation, a repetition of the disaster even of 1866 is 
almost impossible — certainly beyond probability. 

We may not go into details of scores of famines, ancient 
and modern ; we have selected this one, showing how, even 



388 GREAT DISASTERS. 

in adverse circumstances, prompt work lessens the ravages 
of the destroyer. Judging from the percentage of 1769, 
the loss of life in 1866 would, but for the relief work, have 
been about 9,000,000— one-third the population of Bengal. 
The only other calamity in recent years at all comparable, 
is the terrible famine of 1876 in China. How many per- 
ished then may not be definitely known ; but it has been 
variously estimated at from 15,000,000 to 50,000,000. 
We may not dwell upon the horrors of such things — the 
hideous cannibalism that has at times resulted; as when 
we are told that during one famine in Egypt, in the dark 
ages, human flesh was openly sold in the markets! 

A terrible scourge that frequently visited the old world 
in the middle and dark ages is that known as the " Black 
Death." As to its real character and source, the world is 
yet in ignorance. Whether it was readily conveyed in the 
atmosphere or not seems a mooted point. Modern medi- 
cal science has robbed many contagious diseases of their 
terrors. Small-pox is easi.y guarded against. Diptheria 
has no terrors for clean streets. Yellow Jack has little 
chance against sound sanitation and hygiene. The germ 
theory of disease has greatly aided disinfective measures. 

In contagious diseases, infection proceeds chiefly from 
personal contact with a diseased person or objects that 
have been touched by him. In malarial diseases there is 
no danger from personal contact; the disease resulting 
clearly from a poisoned atmosphere. But in the case of 
what are known as epidemics, the source of infection is 
not clear. The disease may attack thousands in a short 
time, and yet not appear readily communicable by per- 
sonal contact. Doubtless in these cases the atmosphere is 
the medium of infection. Hence, disinfective measures 
are of little or no use against them. So while such can 
not properly be classed among atmospheric phenomena, 



FAMINE AM) PESTILENCE. 389 

yet it would seem that in the atmosphere we find the chief 
vehicle of the disease. 

We may not here undertake any discussion of the 
several deadly contagious diseases that are known to 
modern medicine. Suffice it to say nearly all of them may 
be classed as filth diseases, arising from impure food or water, 
or filthy streets. Most notable of these is perhaps the 
terrible Asiatic cholera, that has swept Europe frequently, 
and which is now known to originate in the overcrowding 
and filth attendant upon the great twelve-yearly festival 
in honor of a Hindoo idol. Had the people of the middle 
ages, who regarded its ravages as a visitation of God upon 
them for their sins, been aware of its origin, they might 
have been disposed to wonder why they should be punished 
for the idolatry of a people thousands of miles away 
Possibly such reflections might have originated either a' 
new species of crusade, or have opened the missionary 
movement several centuries earlier than it really began. 

Comparatively speaking, there is little mystery li ft in 
connection with the greater contagious plagues known to 
modern medicine. But the famous Black Death, or 
Plague, or the Pestilence, as it is variously called, remains 
a secret so far as its origin and its proper treatment are 
concerned. Its symptoms are somewhat variously de- 
scribed by various ancient writers. In one point all agree: 
that when near death the body of the victim was covered 
with dark, gangrenous or carbuncular spots and swellings, 
or boils made their appearance in the glands of the neck, 
armpit and groin. It may be that the plague of boils and 
blains sent upon the Egyptians was none other than this 
Black Death. And doubtless it is identical with the ter- 
rible plague that visited Athens, B. C, 430, continuing its 
ravages through three years. People died in swarms, and 
the dead lay about the streets. 



390 GREAT DISASTERS. 

During the middle ages it appeared in Europe on an 
average, every fifty years, its last visitation being upon 
London, in 1665, when 100,000 people perished. Here its 
danger was increased by the fact that its character was 
more insidious than usual. The plague described by 
Thucydides was characterized by high fever and un- 
quenchable thirst, and a reddish inflammation or eruption 
of the skin lasting seven or eight days before the appear- 
ance of the fatal spots ; while from Defoe's account of the 
plague in London, these symptoms, though common, were 
anything but universal ; and frequently persons felt no 
special disorder till the appearance of the spots told that 
death was at hand. Both in Athens and London, contact 
with the dead bodies seems to have been fatal to any ani- 
mal. The suddenness of death in many cases calls to 
mind the last plague of Egypt, or the fate of Sennach- 
erib's host : 

" Like the leaves of the forest, when summer is green, 
That host with their banners at sunset were seen ; 
Like the leaves of the forest, when autumn hath blown, 
That host in the morning lay withered and strown. 

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, 
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed ; 
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, 
And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still. 

And there lay the steed, with his nostrils all wide, 
But through them there rolled not the breath of his pride ; 
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, 
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf." 

The horrors of the plague are beyond description. The 
panic consequent upon the appearance of Yellow Jack in 
the South gives but a faint idea of it. And this very 
panic was a most — we had almost said the most — powerful 
factor in the augmentation of the plague's fatality. Ijfc is 
also the case with cholera that a disturbed condition of the 
mind is fatal in the mildest form of the disease. Some 



FAMINE AND PESTILENCE. 391 

one has thus embodied the case, though of course with 
exaggeration : A traveler leaving Bagdad met Cholera 
entering. " For what are you come? " " To slay 10,000 
people." Each went his way. On returning, the trav- 
eler met Cholera once more. " But you killed 30,000 ! " 
" Nay, friend, I killed but 10,000 ; scare killed the rest ! " 

Occasionally this panic took a terrible form ; as when 
during a season of plague in Germany, the idea seized the 
people that the Jews had occasioned the plague by poison- 
ing the wells ; and Jews were murdered, tortured, and 
burned by the hundreds ; which reminds one of a modern 
writer's sarcastic definition of hydrophobia. " A peculiar 
periodical madness, impelling men to destroy dogs." 

Of the thousand tales of interest that have come down 
to us, we may give place to one, a story of Florence. This 
city had twenty-three visitations of the plague; the first in 
1325, the last in 1630. The plague of 1338 is the noted one 
described by Boccaccio. The story which we condense 
here is an incident of the plague of 1400. 

Among the noble families who were sworn foes, were 
thoseof Rondinelli and Almieri; and one might assoon have 
expected the lion to mate with the serpent, as to hope for an 
alliance between the two families. But Cupid has never 
bothered his meddlesome pate with politics or theology ; 
and so it came about that, as with Montague and Capulet, 
Antonio Kondinelli fell in love with Ginevra Almieri, one 
of the most beautiful women of the time — certainly un- 
surpassed in Florence. Of course, Signor Almieri could 
not for a moment think of such a hateful match, and so 
Ginevra was given to Francesco Agolanti. The young 
wife remained faithful ; but she gradually faded ; and in 
four short years sunk into a sort of lethargic stupor, re- 
sulting in death. The plague was then at its highest, and 
the panic was great. Every death from uncertain cause 



392 GREAT DISASTERS. 

was a source of alarm, and burials were informal and hasty. 
The poor young wife was promptly bundled off to the 
family vault beneath one of the great cathedrals. 

It seems that it was merely a case of coma, or suspended 
animation. The lady revived, only to find herself entombed 
with the skeletons of her husband's ancestors. Horrible 
as this would be for any one, it is a wonder that the weak 
nerves of Ginevra did not give way entirely under the 
strain. She screamed and called — only the dead heard. 
She groped about her tomb, and found a ladder ; clamber- 
ing up, she found a ray of moonlight streaming through a 
crevice, and learned her location She looked abroad 

" Upon the moonlight loveliness, all sunk 
In one unbroken silence, save the moan 
From the lone room of death, or the dull sound 
Of the slow-moving hearse The homes of men 
Were now all desolate, and darkness there 
And solitude and silence took their seat, 
In the deserted streets : for the dark wing 
Of a destroying angel had gone by 
And blasted all existence, and had changed 
The gay, the busy, and the crowded mart 
To one cold speechless city of the dead." 

After desperate effort, and with strength astounding in 
a frame so weak, she forced up one of the paving stones 
that formed the roof of the vault, and dragged herself out. 
Sitting wearily down for a brief rest, a sudden shower 
came up and chilled her to the bone. She rose and went 
to her husband's house. He, at a second story window, as- 
tounded at the ghostly figure in grave clothes that roused 
him in the dead hour of night, " when ghosts do mostly 
walk abroad," and doubtless remembering that his treat- 
ment of the living wife had not been such as to recommend 
him to the favorable notice of her ghost, shut the window 
with alternate imprecations and invocations, and covered 
his head with the bedclothes — well-known in all ages to be 



FAMINE AND PESTILENCE. 393 

thoroughly ghost-proof. Ginevra was similarly repulsed 
from the houses of her father aud of various relatives. As a 
last resort, though exceedingly repugnant to a woman of 
her delicate feeling, she betook herself, almost chilled to 
death, to the house of Rondinelli. To his inquiry as to who 
was there, a weak voice responded, "Do you not know me ; 
Signor Antonio? It is I — Ginevra. Neither my father 
nor my husband will receive me. Will you, too, turn me 
away ? " 

Great as was Antonio's fear of ghosts, the bare possi- 
bility that Ginevra was actually there in the flesh was a far 
stronger consideration ; and he hastened to test the reality 
of his fair visitant. Having her properly cared for, he 
hastened to the vault, where the displaced stone confirmed 
her story. 

A few days later, Antonio boldly applied to the civil 
authorities to marry the "late Ginevra degli Agolanti,'' 
and backed his application with certificates of the death 
and burial of the lady ! The authorities hearing the facts 
— and mayhap being romantically disposed — decided that 
the lady was legally dead, that her relatives, by their own 
unwilling confession, had persisted in so regarding her ; 
hence, she was no longer bound by any legal tie to the 
living, father or husband ! She was absolutely free ! 

So Antonio and Ginevra were married, and of course, 
" lived happily ever after." 



CHAPTER XX. 

THE VOLCANO. 

"And it bubbles, and seetbes, and hisses, and roars, 
As when fire is with water commixed and comblending, 
And a hell-molten surf thunders wild on its shores, 
While a red-tumbling fiood from its caverns outpours, 
Hurling hills from their place, and the mountains downrending, 
So the chaos eternal 
Born of fury infernal, 
Boils and belches and rumbles, unreined and unending." 

IT is an axiom that there are three misstatements in 
the popular description of a crab : " A fish, of a red 
color, that runs backward." 

Ques. What is a volcano ? 

Ans. A volcano is a burning mountain, from the 
summit of which issue smoke and flames. ( Old Geography.) 

The writer remembers the surprise he felt when a lad 
of nine, full of childish confidence in the infallibility of 
text-book misinformation, on reading in Prescott's "Con- 
.quest in Mexico" that Cortez obtained sulphur to replen- 
ish his stock of powder by lowering one of his soldiers 
into the crater of Popocatepetl. He wondered how so 
reputable a historian as Prescott had been induced to 
credit such an extravagant " yarn " on the part of the 
Spanish chronicler. To his youthful fancy, fired by 
the teachings of primary geographies, a volcano was a 
sort of chimney to a titanic iron furnace in full blast ; 
indeed, he would have supposed it safer to descend into an 
iron furnace than into the crater. He speculated long on 
the matter, and wondered if fire-proof dresses were known 
in those days. 

394 



THE VOLCANO. 395 

No small part of the non-traveling public has similar 
misconceptions of 1 he character of volcanoes; and to obtain 
the truth it is not so necessary to learn as to unlearn. 
The description quoted from the old text-book is false in 
every particular. The mountain can not be said to be 
burning any more than melted lead. Nor does anything 
that answers to either smoke or flame issue from it. Be 
it known to all, that the greatest portion of the surface of 
an active crater is usually covered with a solid crust, in 
which there may be a small fiery lake, or inner secondary 
cone or crater. Into many craters it is possible therefore 
to descend : and into one volcano of the Mediterranean 
Sea an enterprising Scotch firm have long had quite 
remunerative chemical works. 

The name is taken from one of the Lipari Islands — a 
small group near Sicily — which was known to the ancients 
as Vulcano. When the Romans imported the Grecian 
god, Hephaistos, to be their chief blacksmith, they assigned 
him Vulcano as his forge, and rechristened the lame old 
fellow with the adjective appellation of Vulcanus. 

Men much prefer the marvellous or mysterious to the 
true. And, while their reverence is of a merely super- 
stitious sort, the reverence of the ignorant often surpasses 
that of the learned. A superstitious people readily manu- 
factured a myth to explain the awe-inspiring demonstra- 
tions of volcanoes ; and the myth itself, because of its 
religious character, would discourage any attempt to 
closely investigate volcanic phenomena as sacrilege and 
impiety. There are similar volcano myths in the island 
and Asiatic world. So firm was the belief of the Sand- 
wich Islanders in the certainty of dire vengeance upon all 
who trespassed on the domain of Pele, the goddess of 
Kilauea, that when a princess of the blood royal safely 
defied the goddess, ate her sacred berries, and threw rocks 



396 GREAT DISASTERS. 

into her boiling lake, the people at once abandoned their 
whole race of gods. If there was no Pele, they knew of 
no god. Such reasons prevented the ancients and the 
barbarian world from obtaining any light on volcanic 
action. 

Similar causes operated with equal force to hinder 
investigation during the middle and dark ages. Christian 
teachers seized upon them as convenient openings to the 
abode of eternal torment. The Arian heretic, the 
Emperor Theodosius, was assigned to Vulcano; while poor 
Anne Boleyn, for whose sake the " Defender of the Faith " 
defied the Pope, was sent by the latter to Mt. iEtna, as 
the shortest route to her destination. 

Similar ideas are noticed among semi -barbarous races. 
The Aztecs deemed Popocatepetl, the greatest of their 
volcanoes, to be the place of punishment for wicked rulers. 
These gentry were supposed to cherish no good will toward 
their subjects, whose complaints had brought them to that 
place of torment, and to be always seeking opportunity 
for vengeance. The people held them in great awe, and 
were wont to invoke the aid of the gods when it became 
necessary to travel near the volcanoes. It is related that 
the highpriest, Tezozomoc, was wont to give aloe-leaves in- 
scribed with sacred characters, to such persons. These 
leaves were amulets to preserve the wearer from harm. 
Southey uses this story in Madoc : 

" So ye may safely pass 
Between the mountains, which in endless war, 
Hurtle with horrible uproar, and frush 
Of rocks, that meet in battle." 

This mountain was in eruption when Cortes reached 
Tlascala on his march to Mexico. It was believed to bode 
evil to the people of Anahuac. Learning the native su- 
perstition, Diego de Ordaz, captain of artillery, determined 



THE VOLCANO. 



397 



to beard the demons in their den, and with some compan- 
ions ascended the mountain. Their safe return convinced 
the natives that the Spaniards were in league with the 
spirits, and did much to dishearten them. In memory of 
this feat, the Oi daz family has a volcano pictured on its 
coat of arms. 

The Javanese call their greatest volcano Maha-Meru. 




AT THE SUMMIT OF POPOCATEPETL. 



Meru, in the Sanscrit mythology, was the home of Brahma, 
and the Malays, having adopted the legend, consider their 
greatest volcano the fittest symbol of his throne and power. 
Virgil's iEneid affords a passage containing the Roman 
myth concerning Mt. iEtna, and showing that the people 
of Virgil's day were acquainted with the phenomena of 
that mountain. Thus Dryden has translated : 



398 GREAT DISASTERS. 

" The flagging wind forsook us with the sun. 
And wearied, on Cyclopean shores we run. 
The port, capacious and secure Irom wind, 
Is to the fort of thundering ^Etn a joined, 
By turns a pitchy cloud she rolls on high. 
And Hakes of mountain flames that arch the sky ; 
Oft from her bowels massy rocks arc thrown, 
And shivered by the force, come piece-meal down; 
Oft liquid cakes of burning sulphur How, 
Fed from the liery springs that burn below. 
Enceladus, they say, transfixed by Jove, 
With blasted limbs came trembling from above, 
And where he fell, th avenging father drew 
This llaming hell, and on his body threw. 
As often as he turns his weary sides, 
He shakes the solid hill, and smoke the heaven hides." 

This conception was borrowed from the Greeks, one of 
whose poets lias told us 

" How shaggy-breasted Typhon lay. 
From sea-girt Cuma to Trinacria's bay." 

Yet, even among the ancients an occasional great mind 
disregarded popular superstition, and enunciated just and 
rational views upon the matter. The elder Pliny lost his 
life in an effort to observe closely an eruption of Vesuvius. 
But the ideas advanced by these men were speedily for- 
gotten ; and the exact scientific examination of volcanoes is 
of the past hundred years, the great Italian, Spallanzani, 
being the first to publish a series of valuable observations 
on the volcanoes of his own land. 

The ancients were acquainted only with the few active 
volcanoes distributed about the Mediterranean Sea, and the 
casual thinker might hence suppose their opportunities for 
observation were quite limited. But volcanic principles 
are the same everywhere, differing only in violence. In 
the Lipari Islands is situated the volcanic cone of Strom- 
boli, which has been in a state of constant activity, though 
very mild, for at least two thousand years. This affords 
excellent opportunities for study, and much of our most 



THE VOLCANO. 390 

valuable information on the topic is derived from careful 
observation of it. When the wind is steady in any quar- 
ter, a person may sit to windward for hours within a few 
yards of the boiling mass, while the noxious vapors and 
gases are borne away in the other direction. 

The expulsive agent is in all cases steam, mingled to a 
greater or less degree with other vapors or gases. Its 
operation may be simply illustrated. Pure water does not 
readily boil over in any open vessel of ordinary dimen- 
sions. But if the vessel be very deep in proportion to its 
width, and the heat is applied at the base only, it boils 
over more readily. Now, if instead of water, we substitute 
porridge, thick molasses, or any similar thick or viscid 
material, the bubbles of steam rise slowly ; and if rapidly 
generated, they force the matter out at the top ere they 
escape. Such bubbles as reach the top, burst, throwing 
tiny particles of the mass into the air. 

How great a portion of the material expelled from 
volcanoes consists of steam and other gases is not easy to 
determine. But that the quantity of vapor is enormous 
is indisputable. Vesuvius is noted for the " pine tree " 
of vapor that overhangs it. The ascending steam and 
gases, on reaching an upper atmosphere as light as them- 
selves, spread out horizontally in every direction, thus 
much resembling in outline the stone-pines that are a 
prominent feature in the Neapolitan landscape. 

Some effort has been made to connect volcanic eruptions 
with atmospheric pressure ; for, say the theorists, a fall of 
two inches in the barometer removes a pressure of over 
2,000,(X tons from each square mile. A sufficient answer 
to this is, that this, after all, is only one pound to the 
square inch ; while the force that can cast up volumes of 
melted matter from a great depth must needs be many 
tons to the square inch. Clearly these gentlemen would 



400 GREAT DISASTERS. 

perch us on a sort of universal fire-box, and poise the lid 
on a hair trigger. 

But heavy rainfalls and terrific thunder storms are 
almost invariable accompaniments of explosive eruptions. 
That these are the result and not the cause of volcanic 
action is clear. An electrical machine was invented by 
Sir William Armstrong, in which electricity was gene- 
rated by forcing steam at great speed through a narrow 
orifice. This same principle would produce volcanic 
thunder storms. The immense volumes of vapor, reach- 
ing the open air, must rapidly cool and be precipitated as 
rain. The Italians dread these torrents, sweeping down 
immense quantities of mud, more than they do the 
streams of lava. 

If an eruption causes an immediate fall of two inches 
of rain over an area seven miles square, it will be found 
that such a rainfall amounts to more than seven millions 
of tons of water. Yet the rainfall often is greater, and 
the area affected is larger ; while it is not to be supposed 
that the entire volume of vapor cast forth is at once 
precipitated on the earth. This computation can not be 
assumed as anything more than a mere illustration of the 
tremendous forces brought into operation. 

The solid substances emitted by volcanoes are popularly 
styled ashes, cinders, or scoria and lava. But what is 
called ashes would be more appropriately named dust ; for it 
is merely finely divided lava, and in no way resembles 
genuine ashes. 

Lavas present a general resemblance to the slag and 
clinkers of smelters and brick-kilns, but vary considerably 
in appearance and chemical composition. We need not 
touch this question further than to state that oxygen forms 
nearly one-half the weight of all lavas, silicon one-fourth 
of most, and aluminum one-tenth. From fifteen to twenty 



THE VOLCANO. 



401 



per cent, is made of various others, magnesium, calcium, 
iron, sodium and potassium being most common. Hence, 
the compounds present are always of the class known to 
chemists as silicates, substances requiring great heat to 




melt. These, from being long melted, abound more or 
less in crystals ; but if any one re-melts them and cools 
them suddenly, the result is a simple glassy mass, with 
no trace of crystals. 

26 



402 GREAT DISASTERS. 

Scoria or cinders differ from ordinary lava only in the 
peculiarity of having partially crystallized in some por- 
tions and then stiffened or solidified while large bubbles 
were yet imprisoned or in the act of bursting ; thus leav- 
ing the mass very ragged and cellular. But if the lava con- 
tains no readily formed crystals, the imprisoned bubbles of 
steam slowly rise to the surface, and being greatly elongated 
by the flowing of the lava, produce the beautiful material 
known as "pumice." It is to lava exactly what froth or 
foam is to water. Usually it is much lighter colored than 
the lava on which it floats, for the same reason that well- 
worked molasses candy is nearly white : they both con- 
tain a vast number of minute air bubbles. Pumice floats 
on water, and its decomposition being generally very slow, 
it drifts about the sea currents, and is often found thou- 
sands of miles from any volcanic region. In the immedi- 
ate neighborhood of volcanoes it often accumulates on the 
sea to such an extent that vessels can hardly force their 
way through it. In the Sunda Islands it has been seen 
on the sea three feet in depth. During the year 1878 the 
accumulation of pumice near the Solomon Isles was so 
great that it took ships three days to force their way 
through. Sometimes such masses accumulate along the 
coast line to such an extent that a person can not readily 
tell where the shore line is. One may land and walk 
about on the great floating raft of pumice, unable to guess 
within even a mile of the actual shore. Deep sea sound- 
ings show that the entire ocean bottom is covered more or 
less with the pulverized pumice and volcanic dust. From 
the wide distribution it is not probable that the layer 
attains any great thickness. 

The Mangaians of the South Pacific told the earlier 
missionaries of a feat of one of their heroes which at first 
was unaccountable. This demigod, Maui, a sort of Pacific 



THE 403 

I 

I ' 
ball 

[aui left 1 

the truth of 

of pumice, - - 

uJarly enoo 

bone. .k^ 

in couseqnec 

'■/ r B 

I 
thousand to jp a 

grain in s 1 

lltant i 

for a til irly ui. 

and fell, an 

,uld 
not meet th 

rity, bu: vith 

tren 

I*, was at length noticed that dust and^H. 

aied by tremendous <:xp. rap- 

s 
and the ith the 

* clue I 



404 GREAT DISASTERS. 

Many liquids and solids have the power of absorbing vast 
quanties of gas. Under pressure their absorbing powers 
may be vastly increased. Sometimes the property appears 
only at high temperatures. Silver when melted absorbs 
twenty-two times its volume of oxygen. If suddenly 
cooled the oxygen is given off with a rapidity verging on 
explosion. This is called the "spitting" of silver. Tiny 
cones and melted streams appear on the cooled surface — 
volcanoes in miniature. The same property belongs to the 
oxide of lead, and some other metals. 

Now water can be made to absorb more than a thousand 
times its bulk of ammonia ; more than five hundred times 
its bulk of hydrochloric acid. Alcohol may absorb three 
hundred times its volume of sulphurous acid. Charcoal 
may absorb one hundred times its volume of ammonia, 
eighty-five times its volume of hydrochloric acid, sixty- 
five times its volume of sulphuretted hydrogen, fifty-five 
times its volume of sulphurous and thirty-five times 
its volume of carbonic acid. Iron, steel and melted sul- 
phur absorb many gases. 

We have already seen that immense volumes of gases 
are thrown off in volcanic action. Now if a column of 
lava rises comparatively slowly in its " chimney," the im- 
prisoned gases rapidly escape, producing violent boil- 
ing, but not a positive explosion. But if it rises very 
rapidly, the sudden removal of the pressure causes so sud- 
den "an expansion of the compressed gases in its upper 
portion as to amount to a tremendous explosion, which 
reduces the lava to microscopic dust. 

This very principle was made practical use of in a me- 
chanical contrivance invented to make paper pulp out of 
common cane, such as the farmer's boy delights in for a 
fishing pole. The hard, woody fibre was placed in a power- 
ful iron cylinder full of water. A strong lid being 



THE VOLCANO. 



405 



adjusted, the whole was heated far above the boiling point 
of water. Naturally, every cell would be forced full of 
moisture by the immense pressure. After some hours 
heating, the lid was suddenly removed, and by the sudden 
expansion of the water into steam the cane was blown to 
atoms. 




A beautiful product of the volcano of Kilauea is the 
substance known as " Pele's Hair." Small particles of 
glass shot violently into the air leave behind them long, 
glittering filaments, like gossamers. Birds often build 
their nests of these henntiful threads. Man, taking a hint 



406 GREAT DISASTERS. 

from nature, has learned to manufacture the glass hair for 
himself by passing jets of steam through the molten slag of 
iron furnaces. It much resembles cotton wool, and is used 
for packing boilers and piston-heads, and similar purposes. 

The appearance of fire at the summit of a volcano is 
rarely ever real flame. Any who has seen the peculiar 
appearance occasioned by brilliant illumination on a moist 
or foggy evening may readily perceive the cause. The 
phenomenon popularly known as the" sun drawing water" 
is of the same character. The immense cloud of vapor 
ascending from the volcano glows with the light sent up 
from the molten mass below. So it may be seen brilliant 
by night, and only a dark cloud by day. Stromboli has 
been called the light-house of the Mediterranean. In 
constant action, the brilliant light at night slowly fades: 
then suddenly breaks out as bright as before. This alter- 
nating results from the bursting of bubbles in the crater, 
which expose a new, hot surface. This rapidly cools ; 
then another bubble bursts ; and so the process continues. 
This may have suggested the alternating light now in 
common use in great light-houses. 

In the Galapagos, and other volcanic islands of the 
Pacific, occurs another curious feature of volcanic action. 
Some places abound in seeming mounds or domes, which 
may be sometimes readily broken in with a heavy stone. 
These are produced by bubbles which partially cooled, 
when the lava below found some rent or outlet in another 
quarter and flowed away, leaving the solidified bubble. 

Sometimes the cavern left by the retreating lava abounds 
in strange beauties. A sailor, who with a comrade, ex- 
plored one of these volcanic caverns, gives the following 
account of it : 

" In a sharp, deep valley of Albemarle we had broken 
in the roof of a bubble ; and as we looked in we saw we 



THE VOLCANO. 407 

had opened the way into a tunnel about fifteen feet in 
width, and extending either way as far as we could see 
from our position. By the lights which entered from 
above, we made out the floor as about twenty feet beneath 
us, and that the walls were curiously marked with col- 
umnar forms. My companion, who had dabbled in the 
sciences, proposed that we should take an underground 
view of volcanic action and appearances. 

"So, on the following day, provided with a couple of 
lamps, a coil of knotted line, and a couple of waist-lines 
and iron poles for staves, we proceeded on our exploration. 
We descended with the knotted rope around our bodies, 
and stuck our feet into the rough side, lighted in our 
way by a single lamp. We carefully watched for any side 
openings which might confuse us or lead us astray in re- 
turning, but we saw none and felt safe. It soon became 
evident that the tunnel had not been formed by a rent of 
the mass after cooling, but rather by the molten lava's 
having drained away after a crust had formed upon it. 
This may account for the singular and beautiful forma- 
tions by which we found ourselves surrounded. After 
proceeding some distance through a passage with a pretty 
uniform width of fifteen to twenty feet, and of about equal 
height, we paused to examine the formation of the cavern. 
The dim light of our lamps illuminated the pilastered 
walls, and a roof raftered and groined with straight and 
curved beams of crystalline structure many feet in length. 
Some of these were of a reddish appearance, and others 
had a vitreous lustre, resembling immense crystals, in 
places broken into the semblance of foliage, which re- 
flected an olive green light. The gloomy splendor of this 
solemn architecture was relieved by the gold or amber 
reflections of crystals of sulphur, which, like marigold or 
sunflower, gleamed in the passage. 



408 GREAT DISASTERS. 

" The broad bases of the pilasters were enriched with 
counterfeits of fern, palms, and growths intricate and deli- 
cate as the penciling of the frost spirit's pictures. But 
these metallic pictures, under the limning of the fire-fiend 
had been inlaid with the brilliant facets of igneous min- 
erals, green and brown in tint. Tempted onward by the 
increasing beauty of the scene, our lamp revealed new 
objects of interest in the increasing lustre of the arched 
ceiling, and the carved and painted walls. Our lamp was 
multiplied by the sparkle from the faces of unknown min- 
erals. In places the passage was divided by central col- 
umns of basalt crystals, which terminated in curves, and 
were in form and tracery varied beyond man's power. 
The rude Goth for his cathedral, the Moslem for his 
mosque, the Celestial for his pagoda, might have drawn 
inspiration from this solemn portal to Nature's vast work- 
shop. 

" As we advanced further into the recesses of the moun- 
tain, the character of the the cave changed. The angular 
crystalline forms which indicated the sudden withdrawal 
of the molten matter, or the deposit of elements sublimed 
by intense heat, yielded to smooth and rounded structures, 
like the worn rocks of the river side, giving the impres- 
sion that the walls had served as a sluice to fiery torrents 
pouring from the volcano. A few steps farther showed us 
the singular curtain-like foldings of a substance resem- 
bling lampblack. Absolutely without lustre, and absorb- 
ent of every ray of light, it was present, as it were, only 
to the touch. With certain misgivings under this curtain 
of gloom, we entered a cavern the form or extent of which 
could only be known by touch of hands, for no possible 
brilliancy of light would command an answering reflection 
from the absorbent surface. Broken as was the surface to 
the touch, to the eye it was without form. The flour was 



THE VOLCANO. 409 

invisible, and we were guided in our steps by our staves 
alone. It was like stepping into primal chaos, before light 
and form had birth. A profound chasm seemed to yawn 
at our feet; yet the rocky floor rang to the blow of the 
staff, and with cautious tread we proceeded. The flame of 
the lamp met no responsive glow ; save from the two in- 
truders who stood awe stricken in this strange emptiness; 
it stood in the still blackness unflickering, like a solid. 
Feeling the broken walls, the hand was met by an oily soft- 
ness ; the eye was useless, and even the touch now failed to 
guide us. Solid walls were not to the eye ; rocky barriers 
seemed simply impenetrable darkness to the hand. 

" From repeated contact with sooty walls, we also became 
covered with this strange, light-absorbing powder, until we 
were enveloped in an invisible mantle, and also passed 
from each other's sight. Eye alone answered to eye in 
their reflections of light. Too deeply impressed for con- 
versation, we stood still with outstretched hands. My 
comrade asked at length, ' May it not be even so in the 
valley of the Shadow of Death?' And we looked for 
strength into each other's eyes and linked our arms that 
we might have the companionship of touch. We were 
now thoroughly frightened, and turned to retrace our 
steps ; but which way ? We stood in a sea of nothing- 
ness — locked in the foundations of the mountain. The 
walls were lost to the sight, and were nothing to the touch. 
We stooped to the deep dust of the floor and held the flame 
to read our foot-prints ; but the soil absorbed the light, as 
the sand of the desert does the raindrop. We reached 
forward, and the hand failed to meet the wall ; we reached 
downward ; there, too, was empty space. The light showed 
no defining edge between the solid rock and the void. We 
swung the lamp from the brink on which we lay; it re- 
vealed nothing. We dropped a heavy stone into the 



410 GREAT DISASTERS. 

chasm and listened for the rebound. No sound was 
returned as it sank into the profound. We cast another 
stone across to test the width, but this, too, was lost to the 
senses. Silently they passed away, as the mist wreath on 
the hill side. And then we knew we had been preserved 
from death. A careless step and we had found a grave in 
the depths of the world's foundations. We realized that 
we were lying in trembling safety on the threshold of the 
extinct volcano, and lifting our useless eyes from the im- 
penetrable blackness, the awful whisper ' Lost ! ' passed 
between us. We were afraid to move; but the wasting oil 
of our lamp warned us that time must not be lost. Pres- 
ently our ears caught the heat of surf on the rock as the 
tide came in, and following this direction, we finally 
reached the entrance, almost fainting from joy when we 
stood beyond this chamber of gloom. Once more we stood 
under the wondrous tracery and reflections of the outer 
gates of the inter-world of mysterious." 

A most thrilling experience, and one giving a fine pic- 
ture of what may be found in the mysterious depths of a 
lava bubble. In some cases the bubbles are very thin ; and 
an unwary passer might be suddenly plunged into un- 
fathomable depths should he tread on one. Usually, 
however, they are formed over horizontal currents or pas- 
sages. 

We have endeavored to give the well-established facts 
concerning the principles of volcanic action. It only 
remains, ere we leave this phase of the subject, that we 
notice the one point on which as yet our knowledge is not 
clear. That point is, the source of the heat which pro- 
duces the remarkable effects. 

Several theories are advanced. One class of scientists 
believes that the earth is a mass of molten matter, with 
only a thin outer shell of cooled material. That a very 



mi: \<>i.<\n<>. 



411 



high temperature exists at no very great distance from the 
surface is beyond a doubt. The observations made in 
mines and artesian wells show that the average increase 



■ 




ERUPTION OF MOUNT VESUVIUS. 



in the temperature is one degree for every fifty-five feet 
in depth. One noted variation exists in the deep wells 
at Buda-Pesth, in Austria, where the temperature, in- 



412 GREAT DISASTERS. 

creased up to 3,000 feet ; bat beyond that depth it became 
cooler again. The Comstock lode in Nevada, the richest 
mineral vein in the world, is nearly at the limit of prac- 
ticable working, the normal temperature being as high as 
one hundred and fifty degrees. 

Even if it be conceded that the material of the earth is 
a molten mass, there would be two theories to explain it: 
one, that the earth was originally in a state of fusion, 
and was slowly cooling ; the other, that the great pressure 
from without keeps an otherwise solid center greatly com- 
pressed and heated, and consequently liquid. Either 
supposition is based on w r ell established facts ; but it does 
not appear clear that the molten globe with a cool shell 
can settle the entire question. 

The objections to this are several. One, the complete 
absence of uniformity in the increase of heat as we de- 
scend. While the total average is as given above, the 
variations are so many and vast, that there does not seem 
to be any general law, as there should be if the molten 
interior possessed the least uniformity. In some shafts 
the increase is one degree for twenty feet; in others, one for 
every one hun-dred; in some, the temperature increases 
much more rapidly at great depths, in others, much less 
rapidly. 

A second objection is, the vast difference in the charac- 
ter of lavas, even in districts very near each other. 
Thirdly, there seems no definite connection between vol- 
canoes in the same region. Two adjacent ones may exhibit 
very different conditions. Mauna Loa is about 10,000 feet 
above Kilauea, a great crater of the same mountain. Yet 
the upper is often in a violent state of eruption when the 
latter is perfectly quiet. It would be difficult to conceive 
how these are supplied from the same source. If the in- 
terior were a molten mass in a state of equilibrium, as 



THE VOLCANO. 413 

would be necessary if the uniformity of its motions in the 
solar system were to be preserved, any undue pressure 
would compel the molten matter to escape from the lowest 
opening. This would be in accordance with the simplest 
laws of liquids. Then we should find volcanic action 
most vigorous at the lowest active volcano ; but such is 
not the case. The idea of a uniformly liquid interior 
seems hardly tenable. 

There is still other objection to this theory. Experi- 
ments have been made with various materials to ascertain 
the change affected in them by heat. It is found that a 
block of granite five feet long, by a change of ninety-six 
degrees in temperature, is expanded .27792 of an inch ; 
crystalline marble, .03264; sandstone, .0549. If, then, a 
portion of the earth's crust ten miles in thickness be heated 
six hundred degrees, its crust would be raised two hun- 
dred feet ; or a change of one degree, the rate of expansion 
being fairly uniform to five hundred or six hundred 
degrees, would raise the surface four inches. How impor- 
tant this matter is may be better understood when we 
consider that if the interior of the earth be a uniformly 
molten mass, with a crust ten miles thick, a contraction of 
one-twelve thousandth of an inch should force out of the 
crust a cubic mile of lava. We should find then a change 
in temperature one forty-eight thousandth of a degree 
should effect this, if the crust were ten miles thick. 

We are then forced to conclude that the earth is not 
cooling to any appreciable extent ; or that the liquid in- 
terior is still capable of indefinite compression without 
necessarily being forced out through orifices in the crust; 
or that the interior is not a uniformly molten mass. 

Such are the arguments against a melted interior. 

The reader should avoid the assumption of a uniform 
rate of contraction or expansion of heat. Within very 



414 GREAT DISASTERS. 

narrow limits, such a hypothesis may be allowed ; but to 
assume that it is universal, would be to affirm that if you 
could only make the earth cold enough it would shrink to 
nothing at all! The earth and the temperature would 
swallow each other, like the two snakes, till neither was 
left. To illustrate more seriously, suppose a race of men 
existed whose only experience of temperature ranged be- 
tween forty and two hundred degrees. They could con- 
sistently calculate, from the change of water between 
these limits, that it would require a temperature of many 
thousands of degrees to expand it to seventeen hundred 
times its bulk. Yet we know they would have to raise 
it only to two hundred and twelve degrees to produce the 
required effect. And if they could go below forty degrees, 
they would be astonished to find that water then expanded 
instead of contracting. 

That the earth, if it cools, does so very slowly is clear, 
from the character of the materials thrown out. Lava 
from Mt. iEtna has been observed slowly moving nine 
months after the eruption. Lower portions of the beds 
have been found to be abnormally heated ten years after 
pouring out. Compare the thickness of a lava bed with 
the depth from which it is thrown, and it will be seen that 
little heat is lost in the subterranean depths. One 
instance, showing how slowly the lava is to part with its 
heat, may be given : 

In the year 1828 a great mass of ice was discovered on 
Mt. ^Etna. In consequence of the protracted heat of the 
season, supplies of ice at Catania and the adjacent regions 
failed entirely, and the people suffered considerably for the 
want of an article considered necessary to health as well 
as comfort in that hot climate. The Catanian authorities 
caused search to be made for some crevasse or natural 
grotto on Mt. iEtna, where drift-snow might exist. Near 



THE VOLCANO. 415 

the base of the highest cone was found a vast mass of ice, 
covered by a lava bed. How old it was there is no means 
of knowing ; nor can we tell how much of the ice might 
have originally been melted by the overflowing current. 
But there it was, so hard and firm that the workmen 
quarried it with great difficulty. 

Lastly, it appears that the causes of earthquakes and 
volcanic action must be the same. A violent volcanic 
outbreak causes earthquake shocks at once, as though re- 
lieved by a safety valve. The experiments of Mr. Robert 
Mallet, the best known authority on earthquake phenom- 
ena, tend to prove that the shocks necessarily originate at 
a comparatively short distance below the surface. So, 
from two independent lines of investigation, the same 
conclusion is reached. 

These objections have caused inquiry to be made as to 
what causes might locally develop heat. Here there are so 
many possible methods that scientists may not be expected 
to unite. One is the chemical theory : water coming in 
contact with quick-lime, or metallic sodium or potassium, 
would evolve intense heat. One or two locomotives have 
been invented which need no fuel, obtaining their heat 
supply thus. 

But it is objected to this that the products of volcanic 
action are not such as would result from such a cause ; that 
all experience indicates that w T ater has already penetrated 
every portion of the earth, the deepest borings always 
crossing veins, and all great mines requiring to be artifi- 
cially drained. 

One other theory is, that the slow contraction of the 
globe from the radiation of heat into space necessarily 
affects the outer portion most directly, and in consequence, 
the shrinking of the crust at the weakest points produces 
unusual pressure there, which can evolve intense heat, as 



416 GREAT DISASTERS. 

is shown b}^ the fact that nearly all rocks so twisted or 
strained are more or less changed in their internal struc- 
ture by heat. It is also evident that a region once thus 
weakened and seriously broken would necessarily form a 
fairly permanent volcanic tract. As the work of nature 
all goes to preserve equilibrium or balance of forces, an 
unusual upheaval would necessitate unusual subsidence 
near at hand ; and in fact the highest mountain is always 
near the deepest ocean. 

This explanation, combined with that of chemical action 
seems to us the more tenable. None of these theories con- 
flict with the nebular hypothesis of Kant and Laplace. 

In looking over the areas of volcanic action, we will find 
they have changed considerably from the areas of the 
past. 

In the continent of Europe there is but one active vol- 
cano — Vesuvius ; but there are six others on islands in the 
Mediterranean. Africa has four active volcanoes on the 
west coast, and six on the east ; while ten others are to be 
found on adjacent islands. Austria has no volcanoes, so far 
as is known. In Asia are twenty-four active volcaiK s ; but 
twelve of these are on the peninsula of Kamtschatka. 
On the American continent we fin I a larger proportion. 
North America has forty-five, most of which are in Mexico 
and Central America ; and South America has thirty-seven. 
Of these continental volcanoes all are near the sea, except 
four which are reported to lie in the great unexplored 
tableland between Siberia and Thibet; and some are said 
to exist in the Chinese province of Mantchooria. No 
white man has visited them. 

But it is in the island world that we must look for the 
most numerous volcanoes. 

A great ridge runs through the Atlantic ; and along this 
lie a number of islands with active centres. Jan Mayen, 



THE VOLCANO. 417 

in the Arctic circle, has an active volcano; Iceland, thir- 
teen; the Azores, six; the Canaries, three ; east African 
islands, eight; the West Indies, six ; three submarine vol- 
canoes have been observed at different times in the Atlantic. 
But through the same region the number of extinct vol- 
canoes is far greater. Of those which exist several seem 
approaching extinction. 

But in the isles of the Pacific and between the Pacific 
and Indian oceans we have a vast series of volcanic vents 
of wonderful activity. In the Aleutian Islands are thirty- 
one; in the Kurile Isles, ten or more; Japan and the 
adjacent groups have twenty-five. Southeast of the Asiatic 
continent is the most active region on the globe. Fifty vol- 
canoes are here known. Farther south are four in New 
Guinea, one or two submarine vents, a number in New 
Britain, the Solomon group, the New Hebrides, three in 
New Zealand, and Erebus and Terror in the Antarctic circle. 
Add to these the islands of the Central Pacific, and we 
have more than one-half the volcanoes of the globe. Be- 
sides there are a large number of nearly perfect volcanic 
cones which must recently have become extinct. 

In conclusion, we find all the oceanic islands are either 
of volcanic or coral formation ; and as we find that the 
coral polyp can not live at a greater depth than one hun- 
dred and twenty feet ; as w r e know the ocean in the imme- 
diate neighborhood of these islands to be many thousand 
of feet in depth ; as we know coral islands to be circular, 
often enclosing a lagoon of water, it is fair to suppose 
that the polyps have not built through long ages of sub- 
sidence, as is usually supposed; but that they have built 
upon the rims of extinct craters lying near the surface. 
The fact that these circular reefs always have one or more 
breaks in their circuit is additional reason for the belief. 
The fact of a coral island lying within a barrier reef, then, 

27 



41, 



GREAT JMSASTHRS. 




THE VOLCANO. 419 

resolves itself into a volcanic crater with an inner cone, as 
every active volcano has. It is rather ludicrous to sup- 
pose that polyps, among the lowest of created beings, lend- 
ing an ephemeral existence, should yet have such unanim- 
ity of purpose, such perfect mutual understanding, as to 
undertake to build their reefs in a more or less circular 
form ; it is preposterous tosuppose the unvarying form of the 
structure is the result of mere chance. Clearly we must 
find some other influences ; and the most reasonable is to 
suppose the foundations of these islands were laid by the 
same agency that raised all other Oceanic islands from the 
bed of the sea. 

The volcano thus plays an important part in the earth's 
economy. Not only does it add to land areas by upheaval 
from the deep. The amount of material thrown out by 
the Javanese volcanoes alone during the past hundred 
years is greater far than all the silt borne to the sea by 
American rivers during the same period. Krakatoa, in 
its recent eruption, threw out more than the Mississippi 
bears to the sea in sixty years. 

There is some doubt as to how much volcanoes effect by 
direct upheaval. The formation of many observed cones 
shows that the majority are mainly built up by the ma- 
terials thrown out, and not by any great elevation of the 
adjacent surface. In the case of a volcano already exist- 
ing, it is of course not easy to know what proportion of 
its mass is merely accumulation of lava, cinders, or tufa. 

As to the form of volcanic cones, those of ashes, cinders, 
and scoria are of course steepest; those of lava thrown out 
when liquid having a very gradual slope. The difference 
may be readily illustrated by comparing a heap of sand 
and pebbles with a heap of stiffening molasses candy. 
One is steeply conical ; the other, rounded or dome-like. 
But either form of volcano may abound in crevices and 



420 GREAT DISASTERS. 

apertures from which issue sulphurous vapors and gases. 
These fumaroles, as they are called, are usually surrounded 
with mineral deposits, often resembling the most delicate 
filigree work. 

Having considered the general phases and principles of 
volcanic action, we may now notice some of the more 
famous eruptions of the past. 



CHAPTER XXL 

GREAT ERUPTIONS OF VESUVIUS. 

"E'en while they cheered the gladiator's thrust, 
And shouted as the lion crunched his bones, 
Up sprang the Fire King from his ages' sleep 
Shook wide his robe of ever-deepening night, 
And flung his fiery banner on the wind. 
The groaning earth then trembled at his tread, 
And thousand thunders rent ti.e raging mount, 
While prince and pauper, 'mid the scorching gloom, 
Groped through the gaping streets ; the ocean hissed, 
And palaces and marble temples reeled. 
And crushed or prisoned; still the ashes fell, 
Till mansions, statues, homes and colonnades, 
And Strength, and Beauty, Love, and Life, and Death. 
Lay heaps on heaps, in one black ruin blent." 

<TAOR nearly seventeen hundred years there lay beneath 
J- a sea of ashes near the Naples Bay, a city whose 
destruction had not been described by the younger Pliny ; 
and in the lapse of years its site had been forgotten. 
During the construction of an aqueduct in 1592, work- 
men frequently came upon foundations of buildings. No 
curiosity seems to have been aroused. Nearly a hundred 
years later other buildings were discovered, with the in- 
scription "Pompeii." Still there was no practical interest. 
Then the attention of the learned was drawn to the discov- 
eries at Herculaneum ; and Alcubierre, a Spanish colonel 
of engineers, in examining the subterranean canal, was led 
by the discovery of a house and s:atues to conjecture that 
some great treasures might lie buried there. Obtaining 
permission of the King of Naples, he began excavations 
in the year 1748. In a few days he unearthed " a picture 

421 



422 tfREAT BIS ASTERS. 

eleven palms long by four and one-half high, containing 
festoons of eggs, fruits and flowers, the head of a man, 
large and in good style, a helmet, an owl, various small 
birds and other objects." Then was found the skeleton 
of a man, covered with the lava mud. By his side were 
eighteen brass coins and one of silver. Then was found 
an amphitheatre, with a seating capacity of ten thousand. 
But the work was poorly conducted: valuable pictures 
were detached from the walls, and the buildings again 
covered with rubbish. No strangers were allowed to copy 
anything. 

When the French occupied Naples, the work was for a 
time better conducted; then it again declined. When 
Victor Emmanuel became King of Italy, a distinguished 
antiquarian scholar, Guiseppe Fiorelli, was appointed di- 
rector-general of the works. Since then, the work has 
been well done, Signor Fiorelli noting "every appearance 
or fragment which might afford or suggest a restoration of 
any part of a buried edifice; replacing with fresh timbers 
every charred beam, propping every tottering wall or por- 
tion of brick work," till the tourist sees to-day a town in 
the integrity of its outlines and order of its arrangement. 
" Temples, baths, markets, tombs, stand out just as they 
stood eighteen hundred years ago. The villa of the port, 
the forum, the counting-house, the baker's shop, the 
school-room, the kitchen, carry us into the very heart of 
Roman life in the brightest days of the empire. The 
jewelry of beauty, the spade of the laborer, the fetter of 
the prisoner and the weapon of the soldier are all there, 
reproducing and realizing the past with a vividness which 
can scarcely be conceived." 

Relics and historic records give us an ideal of the past. 
How correct is the ideal may be inferred from the fact 
that no two antiquarians have the same conception of a 



GEEAT EBUPTIONS OF \ 1 -I \'IL'S. 423 

Druid temple With all the details of Scripture and 
Josephus, we have not an exacl model of the temple. 
Inhabited ruins change with their possessors: those unin- 
habited decay in the war of elements. But Pompeii was, 
so to -peak, hermetically sealed, in the height of it- pros- 
perity, preserved from Goths and Vandals, and is laid 
before us to-day as it stood over eighteen centuries ago, 
allowing us to see how sudden was the storm that burst 
upon it long years ago. The paintii "undimmed 

by the Leaden touch of time; household furniture left in 
the confusion of use; articles, even of intrinsic value, 
abandoned in the hurry of escape, yet safe from the rob- 
ber, or scattered about from the trembling hand which 
could not pause or stoop for its most valuable possessions ; 
and in some instances the bones of the inhabitants, bearing 
sad testimony to the suddenness and completeness of the 
calamity that overwhelmed them." 

"There are the very ruts which were made by the 
wheels of chariots, flying, perhaps, from the impending 
ruin; there are water-pipes, in the cavities of which, 
sealed by the hand of time, the splashing fluid can still be 
beard; there are rude and grotesque inscriptions, scratched 
by some loiterer on the stucco, and as fresh as when they 
excited the mirth of the passer-by; there are egg-shell-. 
bones of ii-h and chickens, and other fragments of a re- 
past of which skeletons lying near were partaking when 
i he catastrophe overwhelmed them ; there is fuel ready to 
l.e supplied to furnaces for heating the baths; there are 
the stains left upon the counters of drinking shops by wet 
glasses; there are the vials of the apothecary, still con- 
taining the fluids he was wont to dispense; there are 
ovens in which loaves of bread, carbonized, but otherwise 
perfect, may yet be seen ; there are vases with olives still 
swimming in oil, the fruit retaining its flavor, and the oil 



424 



GREAT DISASTERS. 



iffrilllMlllWriH 




GREAT ERUPTIONS OF VESUVIUS. 425 

burning readily when submitted to the flame ; there are 
shelves, on which, are piled stores of raisins, figs and chest- 
nuts ; there are amphorae containing the rare wine for 
which Campania was so famous." 

Here you saw a new altar of white marble, wondrously 
beautiful, just from the hands of the sculptor; "an en- 
closure was building all round; the mortar just dashed 
against the side of the wall was but half spread out; you 
saw the long, sliding stroke of the trowel about to return 
and obliterate its own track ; but it never returned ; the 
hand of the workman was suddenly arrested, and the 
whole looks so fresh and new that you would almost 
swear that the mason had only gone to his dinner, and 
about to come back immediately to smooth the roughness." 

The younger Pliny tells us of his uncle's death, and 01 
the suddenness of the calamity. The people were in the 
amphitheater when the volcano burst forth. The elder 
Pliny, in command of the fleet at Misenum, was called 
by his sister to notice a strange cloud that had just ap- 
peared. He had just returned from a walk, bathed, and 
gone to his study. This was August 24, A. D. 79, about 
1 p. 31. The dense cloud occasionally glowed with light ; 
again, it was of inky blackness. It was the " pine tree 
banner," since become so familiar to the Neapolitans. 
Pliny at once started for his galleys, determined to have 
a closer view of the strange scene. As he went to the 
shore he received a note from a lady who lived at the 
base of the mountain, urging him to come to her assist- 
ance. He set out at once to render what aid he could ; 
"for the villas stood extremely thick upon that lovely 
coast." They neared the mount ; cinders, pumice, ashes, 
and glowing stones fell on and among the vessels. Sternly 
ordering the frightened crew to press on, Pliny stood in 
the bow of his vessel, calmly dictating notes and observa- 



426 GREAT DISASTERS. 

tions on the awful scene. Reaching Stabiae, he found a 
friend in great fear, preparing for flight, and waiting for 
a change of wind. Pliny ordered baths, and sat calmly 
down to supper, assuring his friend that the lurid flames 
on the mountain sides were but villages fired by the heated 
stones. Retiring to rest, his anxious friends heard him 
snoring. Finding they were about to be entombed in the 
falling cinders, they roused him, and all, tying pillows on 
their heads as protection from the showers of stones, 
sought the seashore ; but the waves ran too high for them 
to embark. It was still dark as Erebus in the limit of 
the cloud, though already broad day. Drinking some 
water, Pliny stretched himself on a mat; but an unusual 
rush of sulphurous vapor compelled the company to dis- 
perse, and two servants assisted him to rise, but he at 
once fell back dead. Perhaps the noxious vapors were in 
greater quantity near the ground. His nephew tells us 
he always had weak lungs. The company fled. Three 
days later, Pliny's body was found " looking more like a 
man asleep than dead." At Misenum, fourteen miles 
away, the earth was constantly and violently shaken. 
Houses were toppling down. Chariots could not be 
steadied, even by supporting them with large stones. The 
sea rushed back, leaving many marine animals stranded 
high and dry. The dark cloud on Vesuvius flamed and 
roared. The cloud enveloped Misenum and spread to 
Capreae. " Nothing was to be heard but the shrieks of 
women and children, and the cries of men ; some were 
calling for their children, others for their parents, others for 
their husbands, and only distinguishing each other by their 
voices ; one was lamenting his own fate, another that of 
his family ; some wished to die that they might escape 
the dreadful fear of death ; but the greater part imagined 
that the last and eternal night was come, which was to 



GREAT ERUPTIONS OF VESUVIUS. 427 

destroy the gods and the world together." Then came 
the flash of flames ; then darkness and ashes, blinding, 
crushing, burying. Stabiae also was buried. But the 
destruction of the two great cities is given no word ; it 
was sudden and complete. The ruins show they were 
shattered by an earthquake. Then showers of broken 
lava rushed upon Herculaneum ; while Pompeii, farther 
away, was reached only by the cinder-showers. Dion 
Cassius tells us the people were seated in the theatres 
when the shock came. 

In their terror, every object was distorted and magnified. 
" A multitude of men, of superhuman stature, resembling 
giants, appeared sometimes on the mountains, sometimes 
in the environs ; stones and smoke were thrown out ; then 
the giants seemed to rise again, while the sounds of trum- 
pets were heard." 

Cassius, however, wrote a century and a half after the 
disaster; and the chief value of his testimony is to show 
how terrible and lasting an impression had been made 
upon the Campanians, from whom he derived his narrative. 

After the desolation, the site of Pompeii was searched 
for such relics as might be of practical use elsewhere. 
The search was rough and destructive. The Emperor 
Alexander Severus made the place a " sort of quarry from 
which he drew a great quantity of marbles, columns and 
beautiful statues which he employed in adorning the 
edifices which he constructed at Pome. Modern research 
has discovered but few gold and silver articles, coins, and 
statues. It has developed however, a far more fearful and 
faithful picture of the eruption than has been given by any 
historian. The clouds of falling ashes so enveloped each 
object as to preserve an exact impression, from which casts 
have been made, showing every curve and line, even to the 



428 GREAT DISASTERS. 

texture of the clothes. So we look upon the death-agony, 
and conceive the terrors of the scene. 

Here is the arena. Here were skeletons ; perhaps of 
gladiators already slain ; perhaps of wounded men, unable 
to rise, who rolled and gasped, and struggled in the chok- 
ing gloom. There is the prison; you may see the fetters 
still round the leg bones of the inmates. 

Here stood the temple of Isis. On that pedestal was a 
beautiful image of her, draped in purple and gold. In the 
next room lay a priest beside the battered wall, with axe 
in hand. In the next room sat a priest overtaken at his 
dinner. In other cloisters lay other priests, who had re- 
mained at the temple, perhaps deeming Isis would protect 
them in that awful hour. Close by the prison door lay a 
skeleton with a handful of silver coins. Mayhap some 
one had perished there while endeavoring to bribe the 
jailor to release a jirisoned friend. Close by that column, 
in his narrow niche, a Roman sentry stood, full armed ; 
observing to the last, stern, unflinching obedience to super- 
ior powers, who neglected to relieve him in the terror of 
the time. 

In the vault of a beautiful suburban villa of Diomed, lay 
eighteen adults, a boy, and an infant, huddled together in 
attitudes terribly expressive of the agony of a lingering 
death. To the skulls of the children still clung their long, 
blonde hair. There was the impress left by the bust of a 
young girl of striking beauty. Near the garden gate with- 
out the house were two skeletons ; one with a bunch of 
keys and a quantity of money ; the other with a number 
of silver vases. Doubtless the family had thought to escape 
by retiring to the well-provisioned cellar; while two slaves 
endeavored to profit by the confusion to escape with their 
booty. The stifling sulphureous vapor found them out. 

In the house of the Faun stood the skeleton of a wo- 



GREAT ERUPTIONS OF VESUVIUS. 429 

man ; her hands raised over her head. Her scattered jewels 
lay about the floor. Endeavoring at length to leave the 
house, she found the doorway blocked with ashes. The 
flooring of the upper rooms began to fall, and she lifted 
her arms in vain attempt to stay the crumbling roof. Thus 
was she found. 

In a garden near by a woman was found seven feet 
from the earth. She had surmounted many obstacles, but 
perished as she scaled a wall. 

Beneath a staircase lay a man who had with him a vast 
treasure of gold and silver. He had preserved it at a ter- 
rible cost. Near by were five others who had met a simi- 
lar fate. They lay fifteen feet above the earth. Plunder- 
ers were these, overpowered by a rush of mephitic gas 
while delving for buried treasures. 

Here lay two bodies, feet to feet — mother and daughter, 
perhaps. The former lay outstretched and tranquil ; the 
young girl of fifteen, in an attitude expressive of frightful 
agony. Her legs are drawn up and her hands clinched. 
With one hand she had drawn her veil about her head, to 
screen herself from the ashes and smoke. The form and 
texture of her dress are clearly seen ; and through its rents 
the fair young skin appears like polished marble. 

Close by lay a young woman of high rank ; young, 
richly dressed and beautiful. One upraised arm and her 
clenched hands tell plainer than words her agony and de- 
spair. A man — tall, stalwart, in coarse dress and nail- 
studded sandals, lay at hand. Upon his back, with 
straightened limbs and extended arms, he had resolved, 
since unable to escape, to die like a man. His powerful 
features are clearly shown, and a portion of his moustache 
adheres to the plaster cast. 

Such are sights from which the veil of time has at 
last been lifted. How many perished in that fearful out- 



430 GREAT DISASTERS. 

break we shall never know. Seven hundred skeletons 
have been found in one-third of the city of Pompeii. 
Perhaps two thousand perished there. But of the scores 
who fled from the city, from suburban villas, from villages 
along the mountain, and who were overtaken by the fiery 
storm ere they reached a place of safety, who shall tell ? 
Who may declare the fate of the lady who appealed to 
the Roman admiral Pliny for relief? Such questions 
each may determine for himself. History will preserve 
an eternal silence. 

Such are the facts concerning the first great historic 
eruption of Vesuvius, That volcanic phenomena were 
know'ii to the ancients we have already seen; but the 
character of Vesuvius seems to have been unsuspected. 
The Greeks knew of the. mountain top as a depressed 
plain, covered with groves and wild vines. Spartacus 
and his gladiators, with their thousands of followers, had 
their fortified camp there. Strabo called it a volcanic 
mountain, but Pliny the elder did not include it in his 
list of volcanoes. The fertile, rounded slopes were covered 
with well -tilled fields. 

But the neighboring regions were active, though 
Vesuvius was not. Pithecusa, the modern Ischia, was 
often and terribly shaken, and various attempts to settle 
upon it were in consequence abandoned. Poisonous gases 
poured forth, even when there was no active eruption. 

Still nearer Vesuvius lay the noted lake Avernus, which 
in Roman mythology was the gateway of hell. It was 
said to exhale noxious vapors so powerful that birds 
could not cross it. At the present day it is only a pretty 
lake, without any unusual properties. It appears to cover 
an extinct crater. 

In the year 63 a great earthquake was felt in the 
Vesuvian region. Hundreds of lives were lost, and great 



GREAT ERUPTIONS OF VESUVIUS. 431 

damage was done in many cities ; and numerous lighter 
shocks occurred during the next sixteen years. No one 
seems to have apprehended any danger from the mountain. 
How long it had remained dormant is unknown. But 
Pompeii and Herculaneum are both built upon lava beds. 
That Pompeii itself was a very old city is clearly estab- 
lished. In general outline it is elliptical, nearly two miles 
in circuit, the entire area being one hundred and sixty 
acres. Characters upon many of the foundation stones 
would seem to indicate a period earlier than the Etruscan 
occupation; while other portions, especially the towers, are 
certainly of later date. It is quite fair to suppose that 
Vesuvius, from these facts, had lain quiet for a thousand 
years or more. 

One effect of this first eruption of Vesuvius was to 
break down the western wall of the crater and destroy the 
entire side of the mountain next the sea, leaving as the 
only remains of the ancient crater a little ridge on the 
south flank, and that portion, which under the name of 
Somnia, still encircles the present cone. 

From the time of its first eruption, the restlessness of 
Vesuvius has been well observed. The next action oc- 
curred in the year 203. In the meantime the sides of the 
crater had become overgrown with brushwood and forest 
trees, and the basin itself was a favorite haunt of wild 
boars. In the year 472 the mountain broke forth with 
more violence than at either of the former periods. The 
roaring was simply indescribable. The clouds of ashes 
spread over the entire adjacent region. Houses toppled 
down miles away. Scores of people were suffocated. 
The ashes fell in showers at Constantinople and Tripoli. 

Other eruptions followed in 512, 685, and 993. No 
stream of molten lava issued at any of these. But in 1036, a 
great eruption took place, during which, we are told, the 



432 GREAT DISASTERS. 

lava poured forth from fissures in the sides, as well as from 
the top, and ran in a broad and deep stream into the sea. 
Thirteen years later another similar outbreak occurred ; 
then ninety years passed without any disturbance. 

Of these eruptions, little beyond the bare fact is known. 
But from the time of the last one referred to, 1139, scien- 
tific men have carefully watched each outbreak. In 1198, 
the neighboring crater of Solfatara Lake was in eruption ; 
in 1302, Ischia, dormant over fourteen hundred years, 
exhibited wonderful activity. For more than a year earth- 
quakes shook the island, and at length there burst forth a 
lava stream from the southeast side of the mountain, flow- 
ing two miles, to the sea. Many houses were destroyed 
during the two months' eruption ; and not a few of the in- 
habitants abandoned the island. But Vesuvius was quiet 
till 1306. Again it broke forth in 1500. During this 
time iEtna was in a state of unwonted activity. 

The eruption of 1538 broke forth at the foot of the 
mountain, and was marked by some peculiar features. 
The plain between Avernus, Monte Barbaro, and the sea, 
was first raised a little, and many cracks made in it, from 
some of which water issued. The sea retreated about two 
hundred paces, leaving many fish on the sands at the dis- 
posal of the people of Pozzuoli, a little watering place on 
the Bay of Baise. On the evening of September 29, 
numerous shocks of earthquake occurred, and about two 
o'clock in the night an immense fissure opened near the 
lake and extended toward the town. Smoke, fire, stones, 
and mud made of ashes, were vomited furiously, the whole 
process being attended by a terrible roaring, as of contin- 
ual loudest thunder. Stones and masses of pumice larger 
than an ox were thrown out. The gulf in the town 
widened, and not a few houses were broken to pieces, or 
swallowed up in the chasm. 



GREAT ERUPTIONS OF VESUVIUS. 433 

The large stones were thrown about as high as a cross- 
bow would carry, and then fell, sometimes into the lake, 
sometimes into the chasm again ; but mostly upon either 
side of it. The mud was ash-colored, very liquid at first 
but rapidly thickening ; and within thirty-six hours the site 
of Pozzuoli was covered by a volcanic cone. A contem- 
porary chronicler, present at the time, says this cone was 
one thousand paces in height; by which he probably meant 
slant height. The cone at present is four hundred and forty 
feet above the Bay of Naples. Two days later it again 
began to cast forth stones and ashes ; and again on the 
seventh day. Several persons who had ascended the hill 
were killed in this sudden outbreak by falling stones, or 
smothered by the sulphurous vapors. This " Monte 
Nuovo" or New Mountain, is a mile and a half in cir- 
cumference at the base, and four hundred and twenty-one 
feet deep. It is apparent, then, that its bottom is nineteen 
feet above the sea level. The Lucrine Lake was almost 
filled up. Only a shallow pool remains. 

Falconi writes that from Naples the flames were seen, 
bursting forth in the night, between the hot-baths and 
Tripergola. The next morning might be seen the poor 
people flying in terror, begrimed with the black and muddy 
shower, which continued throughout the day. Flying 
from death, death was painted in their countenances. Some 
bore their children in their arms ; some carried sacks full 
of goods; some led donkeys londed with valuables, or such 
as were unable to walk. 

The few eruptions after 1039 had been feeble. We 
find the mountain coming to be regarded as extinct as a 
volcanic crater. Nearly five centuries passed. Bracini, 
who visited it in 1631, writes that " the crater was about 
five mi'es in circumference, and above a thousand feet 
deep ; its sides were covered with brushwood, and at the 

28 



434 GREAT DISASTERS. 

bottom was a plain on which cattle grazed. In the woody 
parts wild boars frequently harbored. In one part of the 
plain, covered with ashes, were three small pools ; one 
filled with hot and bitter water, another Salter than the 
sea, and a third hot but tasteless." Such was the gen- 
eral character of the crater in A. D., 78, save that it was 
not so deep. 

In December, 1631, with a sudden, tremendous roar, 
the mountain flamed into action. This outbreak has never 
been surpassed in fury and destructiveness by any erup- 
tion of Vesuvius, unless we except the one which destroyed 
Pompeii. The fatalities between the two eruptions had 
been few, the most of the mischief being damage to prop- 
erty. One of the eruptions failed to throw out any marked 
amount of matter of any sort. 

- But in 1631 the woods and pastures, vines, and fields 
within the crater, were annihilated. Explosion followed 
explosion in swift succession. The great crater was filled 
with molten rock. Stream after stream poured swiftly 
forth, till seven rivers of fire were desolating the land. 
Crops were fired by the cinder showers. Millions of tons 
of ashes were scattered over the land. The mountain 
slope was dotted with ruined villages. Resina, a populous 
little town on the site of Herculaneum was completely 
destroyed. Storms of wind and rain swept the mountain, 
and the huge rivers of mud buried whatever had escaped 
the lava and ashes. The crater itself was shattered and 
nearly destroyed. Hundreds of cattle were destroyed by 
the fiery storm. Not less than eighteen hundred people 
perished in this great convulsion. Thirty-five years later 
another outbreak occurred ; and since then the mountain 
has been in constant activity. 

The next unusal activity of especial note occurred in 
1737. Breislak has estimated the outflow of lava at 



GREAT ERUPTIONS OF VESUVIUS. 



435 




VESUVIUS IN 1737. 



436 GREAT DISASTERS. 

10,237,096 cubic meters; enough to cover a square mile 
twelve and a half feet in depth. Immense quantities of 
white ashes were thrown out, and the entire mountain was 
filled with rents and fissures, from which poured volumes of 
noxious vapors that suffocated man and beast. The quantity 
of ashes thrown out doubtless exceeded the volume of lava. 
In 1766 occurred another unusual convulsion, the moun- 
tain continuing vigorously active from March till Decem- 
ber, vomiting lava streams and huge volcanic " bombs." 
These last are masses of lava enclosing a bubble of gas, 
which is set free by the breaking of the bomb*as it falls. 
In 1779 the lava streams for a time threatened Naples 
itself. 

Sir William Hamilton, long time English ambassador 
in Italy, has left a careful record of the eruption of 
1793-94. Passing by such features as, common to all its 
eruptions, we have noted elsewhere, we may note the more 
striking particulars : Millions of heated stones were 
thrown high in the air, and fell in beautiful curves about 
the cone. It might be likened to the bursting stars of 
our pyrotechnic displays. Nearly half Vesuvius was cov- 
ered with fire. " Huge masses of white smoke were 
vomited forth by the disturbed mountain, and formed 
themselves at a height of mnny thousands of feet above 
the crater into a huge, ever-moving canopy, through 
which, from time to time, were hurled j^itch-black jets of 
volcanic dust, and dense vapors, mixed with cascades of 
red-hot rocks and scoriae. The rain from the cloud can- 
opy was scalding hot." 

" As the lava rushed forth from its imprisonment it 
streamed a liquid, white and brilliantly pure river, which 
burned for itself a smooth channel through a great arched 
chasm in the side of the mountain. It flowed with the 
clearness of honey in regular channels, cut finer than art 



GBEAT ERUPTIONS OF VESUVIUS. 437 

can imitate and glowing with all the splendor of the sun." 
Various were the effects of stones thrown in. " Light 
bodies of five, ten or fifteen pounds weight, made no im- 
pression ; but bodies of sixty, seventy and eighty pounds 
were seen to form a kind of bed on the surface of the lava 
and float away with it. A stone of three hundred weight 
that had been thrown out by the crater, lay near the 
source of the current of lava. I raised it up on one end 
and then let it fall in upon the liquid lava, when it grad- 
ually sank beneath the surface and disappeared. If I 
wished to describe the manner in which it acted upon the 
lava, I should say that it was like a loaf of bread thrown 
into a bowl of very thick honey, which gradually involves 
itself in the heavy liquid and then slowly sinks to the 
bottom." 

As it flowed down the mountain the brilliant whiteness 
disappeared. Then it began to wrinkle, where flowing 
slowly, like the cream on a pan of milk when poured off. 
Crusts formed, which were speedily cracked to pieces, as 
the current underneath pressed on. On such crusts a 
person may cross the stream, if not particular as to singe- 
ing his boots. Being cooled when near the bottom, yet 
forced on by the pressure behind, the whole mass " resem- 
bled nothing so much as a heap of unconnected cinders 
from an ir m foundry, rolling slowly along and falling 
with a rattling noise over one another." 

This eruption continued from February, 1793, to July, 
1794. Rocks were hurled two thousand feet into the air. 
The lava flowed from fifteen different sources, and pouring 
in one stream from twelve to forty feet thick, flowed 
three hundred and eighty feet into the sea, requiring but 
six hours from the time of the outbreak to reach the shore. 
The sea boiled for one hundred yards around. The town 
of Torre del Greco whs destroyed, and a number of per- 



438 GREAT DISASTERS. 

sons were killed. The natives insisted, when the paroxysm 
was over, on rebuilding on the old site. The Neapolitans 
have a jest concerning their own exemption from the 
calamities which Torre has endured : " Naples sins and 
Torre is punished." The lava of this discharge is esti- 
mated at about twenty-one million cubic metres. 

Several eruptions of Vesuvius have occurred during the 
present century. Of these, the most notable are those of 
1822 and 1872. They have given us exact information 
upon a point where formerly there was only conjecture, 
viz : the height which the material threwn out may reach. 

In 1822, the ashes for twelve days fell in a continuous 
shower. The lava which had boiled up and hardened till 
the appearance of a depressed crater was lost was blown 
away. An immense abyss was formed, three-fourths of a 
mile in length and two thousand feet deep. The entire 
top of the cone was then blown away. Masses of lava 
weighing many tons were hurled two or three miles. 
Darkness prevailed in broad day, as far away as Amalfi, 
where the ashes fell to the depth of several inches. The 
dense column of ashes and vapor was thrown ten thousand 
feet above the level of the sea. In no known eruption has 
the electrical display been so brilliant and continuous. 
The roll of thunder could be clearly distinguished from 
the rumble of the volcano. 

In recent years an observatory has been erected on the 
mountain, and all its phenomena carefully noted. During 
the eruption of 1872 instantaneous photography was 
pressed into service. A comparison of the whole view 
with the height of the mountain, showed that the vapors 
and fragments were thrown twenty thousand feet into the 
air — nearly four miles. This outburst began on April 24, 
and reached its climax in two days. The entire mountain 
filled with fissures and cracks — in the words of Prof. Pal- 




GREAT ERUPTIONS OF VESUVIUS. 

mieri, "sweated fire." Enormous volumes of steam poured 
from the crater, with such a prodigious roar, that the terrified 
Neapolitans rushed from their houses, and spent the night 
in the open air. The lava floods rushed down the moun- 
tain side ; and one of them destroyed two villages, besides 
many country houses adjacent. The whole region for sev- 
eral days quivered with shocks of earthquake. 

Such have been the more important eruptions of Vesu- 
vius. Its position, by an ancient and populous city, has 
made it the most celebrated of volcanoes. There seems no 
doubt that it is supplied from the same source which feeds 
the others in the neighborhood, as well as Mt. iEtna. 
When Vesuvius is quiet, iEtna is active, and vice versa. 
Close observation has established a well-defined daily 
periodicity : so that the most favorable period for visiting 
the crater may always be known beforehand. 

In fine, about sixty eruptions of Vesuvius are on record. 
Of these, twenty-three were during the last century, and 
twenty-five during this. The activity of the entire region 
seems on the increase. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

OTHER GREAT ERUPTIONS. 

" Hast thou observed the ancient tract, 
That was trodden by wicked mortals, 
Who were arrested on a sudden, 
Whose foundation is a molten flood ? 
Who said to God, Depart from us, 
What can Shaddai do to us? 
Though he had filled their houses with wealth. 
( Far froin me be the counsel of the wicked ! ) 
The righteous beheld and rejoiced, 
The innocent laughed them to scorn, 
Surely their substance was carried away, 
And their riches devoured by fire." 

^(UCH is Dr. Henderson's translation of Job XXII, 
A-' 15-20. By many the passage has been supposed to 
refer to the destruction of the cities of the plain, and used 
to support the theory that a volcanic eruption was the 
means of their overthrow. If the theory were true, the 
catastrophe is the earliest historic eruption. A brief state- 
ment of the reasons for the belief may interest the reader. 
The entire Dead Sea valley is depressed far below the 
level of the sea. From the Dead Sea to the head of the 
Red Sea is a well-marked trough, supposed to indicate that 
the Jordan once emptied into the Red Sea. The adjacent 
Sinaitic peninsula is a volcanic region, which may have 
been in eruption when the Israelites passed it. Dr. Rob- 
inson reports water marks left high on the cliffs, far to the 
south of the Dead Sea. Fragments of lava have been 
picked up among the salt-crusts and bituminous deposits 
on the shores. 

In short, the region is one in which, at some time, vol- 
canic action occurred. It lies between two great volcanic 

440 



OTHER GREAT ERUPTIONS. 



441 




OBSTRUCTION OF SODOM." 



442 GREAT DISASTERS. 

centers; Sinai, and the volcanic region of Arabia and 
Syria. The question really is, whether any disturbance 
occurred there at so late a period as the destruction of 
Sodom. 

The idea advanced by several thoughtful men is, that 
in the bituminous plain occupied by the cities, fissures 
opened and flames and cinders issuing, rained upon the 
inflammable surface, speedily destroying the cities, which 
sunk with the earth till the sea covered them. Such cases, 
minus the bitumen, have several times occurred. And, 
again, the sea might have existed before, and merely have 
been extended by the convulsion. Such is the substance 
of the theory. 

Cases in support of it are not wanting. The city of 
Euphemia, in Calabria, was so swallowed up in 1638. 
Kircher, who was near at the time, tells how he and his 
companions, unable to keep their feet, during the violent 
earthquake, lay upon the ground till the paroxysms were 
somewhat abated. Rising and looking for Euphemia, only 
a frightful black cloud was seen. It slowly cleared away 
revealing a loathsome and putrid lake. No trace of the 
city or its inhabitants was ever found. 

In the island of Trinidad is a vast lake of pitch, of 
which the Indian legend tells the origin. The words are 
Kingsley's : 

" Once that dark and loathly pitch-lake 
Was a garden, bright and fair, 
And the Chaymas, from the mainland, 
Built their palm ajoupas there. 

There they throve, and there they fattened. 

Hale and happy, safe and strong, 
Passed the livelong days in feasting, 

Passed the nights in dance and song. 

Till they cruel grew, and wanton, 

Till they killed the colibris, 
Then outspoke the Great good Spirit, , 

Who can see through all the trees." 



OTHER GREAT ERUPTIONS. 443 

The spirit proceeded to remind the Chaymas of all the 
good things he had provided for them ; how he had allowed 
them unlimited use of all things which could be of any 
possible good to them ; how he had even been patient with 
their thanklessness. Only the colibris or humming-birds, 
useless to the Chaymas, he had reserved for himself, that 
he might have pleasure in their beauty and happiness. 
The story continues : 

" But the Chaymas' ears were deafened. 
Blind their eyes, and could not see, 
How a blissful Indian's spirit 
Lived in every colibri. 

Lived, forgetting pain and sorrow, 

Ever fair and ever new, 
Whirring round the dear old woodland, 

Feeding on the honeydew. 

Then one evening roared the earthquake, 
Monkeys howled, and parrots screamed, 

And the Guaraons, at morning 
Gathered here, as men who dreamed. 

Sunk were gardens, sunk ajoupas, 

Hut and hammock, man and hound, 
And above the Chayma village, 

Boiled with pitch the cursed ground." 

The salient points of the evidence being presented, the 
reader may draw his own conclusions. Perhaps the cities 
were fired in the manner suggested — perhaps lightning 
ignited the bitumen. But it is generally supposed that 
their site lies beneath the sea. 

After the account given of Vesuvius, the reader will 
no doubt be surprised to learn that this noted mountain 
can not rank as more than a respectable fourth-rate vol- 
cano. It will require but a brief comparison with others 
to show that such is the case. 

By far the largest volcano in Europe, and next to Vesu- 
vius, the most noted, is Mt. Etna, in the island of Sicily. 
It was well known to the ancients, and appears to have 



444 GREAT DISASTERS. 

been in eruption from the most remote historic times. 
Diodorus Siculus records that a violent eruption caused an 
adjacent district to be deserted by its inhabitants before 
the Trojan war. Thucydides tells of three eruptions be- 
tween the colonization of Sicily by the Greeks and the 
Peloponnesian war — 431 B. C. 

Notwithstanding the great antiquity of the records of 
this mountain, but little detail is known of its earlier 
eruptions. The first of which any extended account 
exists is the great outbreak of 1669.' The convulsion 
began with a tremendous earthquake. Many villages and 
towns in the adjacent districts were leveled to the earth. 
In the plain of St. Lio, a fissure six feet wide and twelve 
miles long and of unknown depth opened from north to 
south with a terrific, crashing noise, and extended nearly 
to the top of the mountain. Flashes of intense light 
poured from it. Five other parallel fissures afterwards 
opened, one after the other, emitting smoke, and the most 
horrid bellowiugs, which were heard to the distance ©f 
forty miles. 

This explains the manner in which dykes or banks of 
lava are thrown up amid other rocks. The light emitted by 
these fissures would indicate that they were, to a certain 
height, filled with glowing lava. 

The lava, during this eruption, having overwhelmed 
and destroyed fourteen towns, some of them containing 
three or four thousand inhabitants, at length arrived at 
the walls of Catania, a populous city, situated ten miles 
from the volcano. These walls had been raised sixty feet 
high, towards the mountain, in order to protect the city, 
in case of an eruption. But the burning flood accumu- 
lated against the wall, so as to fill all the space around 
and below that part, and finally poured over it in a fiery 
cataract, destroying every thing in that vicinity. 



OTHER GREAT ERUPTIONS. 445 

From Catania the lava continued its course until it 
reached the sea, a distance of fifteen miles from its source, 
in a current about eighteen hundred fret broad, and forty 
feet deep. While moving on, its surface was, in general, 
a mass of solid rock, or cooled lava, and it advanced by 
the protrusion of the melted matter, through this hardened 
crust. 

As an illustration of the intense heat of volcanic matter, 
the Canon Kecupero relates that in 1766 he ascended a 
small hill composed of ancient volcanic matter, in order 
to observe the slow and gradual manner in which a cur- 
rent of liquid fire advanced from iEtna. This current 
was two and a half miles broad ; and, while he stood ob- 
serving it, two small threads of lava, issuing from a 
crevice, detached themselves from the main stream, and 
approached rapidly towards the eminence where he and 
his guide were standing. They had only just time to 
escape, when they saw the hill on which they stood a few 
minutes before, and which was fifty feet high, entirely 
surrounded, and, in about fifteen minutes, entirely melted 
down into the burning mass, so as to be incorporated 
with, and move on along with it. 

According to Hitchcock, 77,000 persons perished 
during the eruption of 1769, and eighty-four square 
miles were covered with lava. 

The slowness with which lava cools may be inferred 
that ten years later, workmen endeavoring to sink a shaft 
through the bed were forced to abandon the work when 
near the bottom, by reason of the heat. 

While this was iEtna's greatest outbreak, several of 
terrible destructiveness have occurred since. In 1693 an 
eruption was accompanied by earthquake shocks, which 
in three days did more damage than the lava. Catania 
was almost destroyed ; great sea-waves rolled in upon the 



446 



GREAT DISASTERS. 




OTHER GREAT ERUPTIONS. 447 

wreck : the vessels in the harbor were dashed against each 
other or upon the beach : the ringing of the bells and the 
roar of the mountain and sea was mingled with the cries 
of thousands of unfortunates struggling in the ruins. Not 
less than 16,000 people perished in Catania alone. 

In 1755 occurred an eruption which is memorable for 
the great flood which attended it. Immense quantities of 
snow and ice, accumulated about the summit, were melted 
by the intense heat, and the waters rushed down in a 
column thirty feet deep and one and three-quarters miles 
wide, into the plain below. The lower portion of the valley 
was filled with the debris. Those who were not buried in 
the rubbish were swept out to sea. The total loss of life 
is not exactly known, but amounted to many thousands. 

Second in volume to the eruption of 1G69, but very 
slightly destructive, is the eruption of 1852-53. It began 
August 20, 1852, and continued nine months. "The 
united width of the lava streams was two miles, with a 
depth of from eight to sixteen feet, piled up in some 
places to one hundred feet. It reached to near Zarafana, 
— almost six miles, descending thirty-five hundred feet in 
sixteen days. The Val del Bove, from the upper part of 
which it proceeded, looked like a sea of fire. Explosions 
as of artillery were frequently heard, and the scoria? 
were sent up to great heights. " The intense heat set fire 
to the trees in the vicinity. 

In January, 1865, a considerable eruption took place 
from an immense fissure on the northeastern slope of the 
mountain. Seven active craters developed along the fissure, 
sending out a lava stream one and one-half miles wide. 

Three other eruptions have taken place from iEtna since 
1853 ; but, save some damage to property, these have been 
comparatively unimportant, save from a geological stand- 
point. One began in 1874 from a fissure on the north 



448 GREAT DISASTERS. 

side, but suddenly ceased. Prof. Silvestri, after examining 
the locality, asserted that the next eruption would take 
place from this same fissure. Five years later his asser- 
tion was verified, large streams of lava being sent out, with 
heavy showers of ashes and sand. Large areas of forest 
were destroyed, and the stream drew alarmingly near some 
populous villages, but stopped not far from a small river. 
The area of the lava bed was about seven hundred and fifty 
acres, the volume being about twenty-three and a half 
million tons. 

./Etna's last eruption was in May, 1886 ; a few houses 
were destroyed, but no lives were lost. ./Etna and the ad- 
jacent Lipari Islands exhibited unusual activity during the 
entire seventeenth century, having a total of fourteen erup- 
tions ; as many as are recorded in all their previous his- 
tory. The next century witnessed fifteen outbursts from 
y£tna, and during the present one there have been eleven. 

It will be noticed that both Vesuvius and iEtna seem to 
have reached their maximum activity at the close of the 
last century. The same is true of the volcanoes of Iceland. 
This island, which is as large as Ireland, is built up en- 
tirely of volcanic matter. It doubtless began with a single, 
great submarine volcano ; but to-day it has at least thirteen 
active vents. It presents us with the most tremendous 
outpour of matter in the history of the world. For seven 
hundred years there has not been an interval of forty, and 
seldom of more than twenty, without eruptions and earth- 
quakes in some portion of the island. Single eruptions of 
Mt. Hecla have lasted six years. Often during violent 
earthquakes, old mountains have disappeared ; new [ones 
have been raised up; rivers turned fiom their courses, or 
dried up altogether. The old Norseman who discovered 
the island nrght much more appropriately have named it 
Fireland. Doubtless had his ancestors known the island 



OTHER GREAT ERUPTIONS. 449 

they would have chosen it as the home of the terrible fire 
giants. 

But Iceland is the realm of both frost and fire ; and there 
is no more romantic or painful chapter in history than 
the story of this hardy and spirited race to maintain their 
foothold in the face of such terrible odds. Those who hold 
that a nation's progress and stamina are in proportion to 
its material advantages, would have to make an exception 
in favor of blood. The plucky Norsemen have held their 
own in this region for nine centuries ; nor is there any 
deterioration. No nation can to-day show a better intel- 
lectual or moral condition than these poor but hardy 
islanders. Yet there is not a region of the world that has 
been more frequently or terribly scourged than this semi- 
barren island. 

The best known volcano in Iceland is Mt. Hecla, which 
ranks with iEtna and Vesuvius in fame. It is not the 
highest nor most remarkable of Icelandic volcanoes ; but 
the frequency of its eruptions, together with the fact that 
it may be easily reached, have brought it to the front. It 
is five thousand feet high, and lies but thirty-five miles 
from the sea. The larger portion of the material thrown 
out by it consists of slag, cinders, pumice, and ashes, the 
slope of its cone being about 35 degrees. It has nothing 
answering to the customary crater ; the eruptions break 
from fissures in its sides ; and, in consequence, it may emit 
several streams or showers at once. 

Hecla has been in eruption about thirty times since its 
character was first known, and has at times made fearful 
havoc. Its last great outbreak was in 1878. 

Hecla has adjutants in this volcanic field that are more 
savage and relentless than the generalissimo. One of 
the most destructive outbursts of recent times occurred in 
the Vatna district in 1875. In this region, about sixty 

29 



450 



GREAT DISASTERS. 




OTHER GREAT ERUPTIONS. 451 

miles by one hundred and fifteen, is a very nest of volcan- 
oes. The convulsion lasted several months, the entire 
region being active; and great numbers of people perished. 
So great was the destruction of property, crops, and flocks 
that the people, reduced to starvation, were compelled to 
appeal to Britain and Denmark for assistance. This has 
happened more than once in Iceland's history. 

But far up in the impenetrable deserts of the interior is 
a mountain which has seldom shown any activity ; but 
when in full blast, its power is unsurpassed by any vol- 
cano on the globe. This is the fearful Skaptar Jokul, or 
Skaptar mountain. A single instance of its power will 
suffice. 

One of the most stupendous outbreaks recorded in his- 
tory is that of Skaptar Jokul in 1783. In the quantity of 
lava ejected, it is hardly surpassed by any single eruption ; 
and few disturbances of the sort have surpassed it in 
fatality. Immense volumes of ashes were hurled into the 
air, spreading over the whole island in dense clouds. 
Streams were poisoned by the minerals and alkalies thrown 
out. Immense numbers of sheep and cattle perished. 
Thousands of acres of pasture lands were ruined. Where 
the grass was not killed, it often was rendered poisonous, 
like the water, by the mineral dust falling upon it. The 
hills were dotted with the decaying carcasses. The air 
was filled with horrible stench. The ashes fell in such 
volumes into the ocean that the fish deserted the coast. 
The flying clouds of dust spread to Europe. The appal- 
ling horror of the scene can hardly be imagined. Death 
stalked abroad in his most repulsive form. 

"The river Skapta, a, considerable stream, was for a 
time completely dried by a torrent of liquid fire. This 
river was about two hundred feet broad, and its banks 
from four to six hundred above the level of the water. 



452 GREAT DISASTERS. 

This defile was entirely filled for a considerable distance 
by the lava, which crossed the river by the dam thus 
formed, and overflowed the country beyond, where it filled 
a lake of considerable extent, and great depth. 

i( This eruption commenced on the 11th of June. On the 
18th of the same month, a still greater quantity of lava 
rushed from the mouth of the volcano, and flowed with 
amazing rapidity, sometimes over the first stream, but gen- 
erally in a new course. The melted matter having crossed 
some of the tributary streams of the Skapta, completely 
dammed up their waters and caused great destruction of 
property and lives by their overflow. The lava, after 
flowing for several days, was precipitated down a tremend- 
ous cataract, called Stapafoss, where it filled a profound 
abyss, which that great water-fall had been excavating for 
ages, and thence the fiery flood continued its course. 

"On the 3rd of August, a new eruption poured forth fresh 
floods of lava, which, taking a different direction from the 
others, filled the bed of another river, by which a large 
lake was formed, and much property and many lives 
destroyed. 

" The effect of this dreadful calamity may in some meas- 
ure be imagined when it is known that, although Iceland 
did not at that time contain more than fifty thousand in- 
habitants, there perished nine thousand human beings by 
this single eruption, making nearly one in five of the 
whole population. Part of them were destroyed by the 
burning lava itself; some by drowning, other by noxious 
vapors which the lava emitted, and others in consequence 
of the famine, caused by the showers of ashes, which cov- 
ered a great proportion of the island and destroyed most 
of the vegetation. The fish, also, on which the inhabitants 
depended, in a great measure, for food, entirely deserted 
the coast." 



OTHER GREAT ERUPTIONS. 453 

The quantity of lava which Skaptar Jokul emitted dur- 
ing this eruption was almost beyond belief. The two 
principnl branches were respectively forty and fifty miles 
long. The branch which crossed the Skapta was from 
twelve to fifteen miles wide; the width of the other was 
seven miles. The usual depth was one hundred feet ; but 
two and three hundred were frequent; and where the 
streams dashed across gorges or narrow valleys the depth 
was six or seven hundred. It would be quite safe to esti- 
mate the average depth at one hundred and fifty feet. 
These two principal streams were, then, sufficient to cover 
one thousand square miles to a depth of one hundred and 
fifty feet. Contrast with this the twenty million cubic 
meters estimated to have been poured forth in one of the 
great Vesuvian eruptions. This last would cover one 
square mile to a depth of twenty-five feet. Vesuvius sinks 
to an insignificance that is pitiable ; its great outbreak pro- 
duced but one-six thousandths as much as the single erup- 
tion of Skaptar Jokul ! Such calculations may give us a 
comparative estimate of the two ; but no figures can give 
us any conception of the force required to elevate such a 
stream of melted rock through the crust of the earth. 
And if we compare the resultant fatality, it is clear that 
this great convulsion, in a very sparsely settled island, 
destroyed more lives than all the outbursts of Vesuvius in 
its densely populated neighborhood. 

This eruption of Skaptar was preceded by several out- 
breaks in the sea ; some of them close to the shore ; some 
many miles from land. Such phenomena have become 
tolerably familiar. Livy informs us that a disturbance of 
this kind near Sicily, occurring with similar phenomena 
at the time of Hannibal's death, so terrified the Romans 
as to induce them to proclaim a day of supplication to 
the gods to avert their displeasure. Santorin in the 



454 GHEAT DISASTERS. 

Grecian Archipelago is a similar production. And in 
1831 an island was thrown up to the southwest of Sicily, 
where previous soundings had shown a depth of six hun- 
dred feet. It was preceded by a violent spouting of 
steam and water. The sea around was filled with floating 
pumice and dead fish. The crater reached a height of 
two hundred feet, being three miles in circumference. Its 
circular basin was full of boiling, dingy, red water. It 
continued active three weeks, and then slowly sank, leaving 
a dangerous reef eleven feet below the surface ; while a 
single black volcanic rock projected from the sea near the 
center of the reef. It is known as Graham's Island. 
Thus we see that volcanic action is not confined to the 
land, and that the areas affected are continually shifting. 

Jorullo, in Mexico, affords an example of the way in 
which new volcanoes are constantly being formed. In 
the parallel of the City of Mexico exist five volcanoes, 
extending in a line across the country as if thrown up 
along some immense fissure or subterranean fault, extend- 
ing from sea to sea. Of these Popocatepetl is perhaps 
the largest, and Jorullo the most recent. 

There formerly existed in Mexico an extensive plain of 
remarkable fertility, covered with fields of cane, cotton 
and indigo, and watered by irrigation from the reservoirs 
in the basaltic mountains that bounded it. This region, 
the Malpays, had no volcano within eighty miles, and lay 
twenty -six hundred feet above the sea. In June, 1759, 
alarming rumblings were heard in the earth, which were 
succeeded by severe earthquakes. These phenomena 
lasted several weeks, to the great consternation of the in- 
habitants. In September it seemed that quiet was restored, 
when suddenly, on the night of the 28th, a fearful subter- 
ranean noise was again heard ; fissures opened, and hot 
stones were thrown out. Part of the plain rose up like 



OTHER GREAT ERUPTIONS. 



455 



an immense bubble to the height of sixteen hundred feet. 
Imagine the astonishment of the natives when morning 
showed them a mountain where the night before was a 




If 
I 

level plain ! It almost seemed as though some magic had 
transported them to another land. Smoke and ashes 
spouted forth ; five smaller cones were thrown up, the 



456 GREAT DISASTERS. 

least of which was three hundred feet in height. The 
plain was dotted with thousands of small conical mounds, 
called by the natives hor?iitos, or ovens. Each emitted 
vapor for a time ; but at length all the upheavals, save 
Jorullo, ceased action, though the plain remained so hot 
as to be uninhabitable for many years. Jorullo continued 
to throw out lava several months, and has been in more 
moderate action ever since. 

In some respects the terrible outbreak of Skaptar Jokul 
has been several times exceeded. While almost alone in 
the immense quantity of lava thrown out, we have seen 
that great streams of lava are not accompanied by the most 
violent explosions. In the number of lives destroyed, 
Skaptar has also been exceeded ; but if Iceland had been 
as densely populated as Ireland, which it equals in area, 
the convulsion might have destroyed half a million or 
more. 

One of the best examples of the force of steam on a 
smaller scale is seen in the eruptions of volcanoes, is to 
be found in the geysers of Iceland. These lie in a strip 
of ground one hundred yards wide and about a quarter of 
a mile in length. The ground is dotted with numerous 
dark apertures and conical mounds, from which clouds of 
steam ascend continually. Of these the Little Geyser is 
no longer active, being merely a pool of still, hot water. 
The Great Geyser is periodically active, and the Strokr, 
or Churn, may be excited at any time by throwing a 
quantity of earth into it. As a matter of course, these 
boiling springs never do any damage, the quantity of 
water thrown out being of no consequence. The water 
holds in solution a vast quantity of silicious matter, which 
is deposited around the mouth of the geyser, forming 
sometimes a saucer-shaped basin, sometimes a nipple- 
shaped mound. From the rate at which the deposits are 



OTHER GREAT ERUPTIONS. 



457 



made, it is estimated that the Great Geyser is about ten 
hundred and sixty years old. • 

One of the most tremendous outbursts of which we have 
any authentic account occurred in the island of Sumbawa. 
It is one of the Molucca islands; and the mountain from 




GEYSEK 



which the outbreak occurred is called Tomboro. 

" This eruption commenced on the 5th of April, 1815, 
but was most terrific on the 11th and 12th of that month; 
nor did it cease entirely until some time in the following 
July. The explosion so much resembled the firing o* 



458 GREAT DISASTERS. 

heavy cannon at a distance that the people of many ves- 
sels at sea supposed there was a great naval engagement 
within hearing, but could not imagine what nations were 
engaged. 

" The commanders of some ships, and several English 
forts, gave orders to prepare for battle, though they were 
several hundred miles distant from the mountain. At 
Sumatra these tremendous explosions were distinctly heard, 
though not nearer than nine hundred and seventy miles 
from Tomboro. They were also heard at Ternate, in the 
opposite direction from Sumatra, at the distance of seven 
hundred and twenty miles from the mountain. 

" So immense in quantity was the fall of ashes, that at 
Bima, forty miles from the mountain, the roof of the En- 
glish resident's house was crushed by the weight, and 
many other houses in the same town were rendered unin- 
habitable from the same cause. At Java, three hundred 
miles distant, the air was so full of ashes that from this 
cause, at mid-day, it is said, the darkness was so profound 
that nothing like it had ever before been experienced dur- 
ing the most stormy night. 

" Along the coast of Sumbawa the sea was covered with 
floating lava, intermixed with trees and timber, so that it 
was difficult for vessels to sail through the mass. Some 
captains, though at a long distance at sea, mistook this mass 
for land, aud sent out their boats in order to ascertain the 
safety of their situations. The sea, on this and the neigh- 
boring coast, rose suddenly to the height of twelve feet, in 
the form of immense waves, and, as they retired, swept 
away trees, timber, and houses with their inhabitants. All 
the vessels lying near the shore were torn from their 
anchoring and cast upon the land. Violent whirlwinds 
carried into the air, men, horses, cattle, trees, and what- 
ever else was in the vicinity of the mountain. Large trees 



OTHER GREAT ERUPTIONS. 459 

were torn up by the roots and carried into the sea. But 
the most calamitous part of the account still remains ; for 
such were the tremendous effects of the burning lava — the 
overflowing of the sea, the fall of houses, and the violence 
of the whirlwind, that, out of twelve thousand inhabitants 
on this island, only twenty-six individuals escaped with 
their lives, all the rest being destroyed in one way or 
another. 

" The whole island was completely covered with ashes, 
or other volcanic matter. In some places the bottom of 
the sea was so elevated as to make shoals where there was 
deep water before ; and in others, the land sunk down and 
was overflown by the sea. Adding those who were killed 
on other islands, the total death roll was over twenty thou- 
sand." 

This entire region is one of wonderful activity. Mount 
Api, in the island of Banda, in the same group, has had 
twelve violent eruptions in two hundred and thirty-four 
years; and, indeed, it ishardlyever really quiet. The volcano 
of Abo, in the island of Sanguir, broke out in 1711, burying 
a large number of villages in cinders, covering extensive 
areas of forest and plain, and destroying many thousands 
of people. This same volcano burst forth suddenly in 
March, 1856, vomiting torrents of mud, streams of lava, 
and clouds of ashes and scoria, doing almost as much mis- 
chief as on the former occasion. In the island of Timor, 
a gigantic volcano, long known as the Peak, began a vio- 
lent eruption in 1638. When the convulsion was over 
the mountain had disappeared ; partly blown away, partly 
sunken, and the site is to this day covered by a great lake. 

But the center of this great volcanic region lies in the 
island of Java, which possesses about fifty craters, half of 
them still active. The heat and vapors poured out, com- 
bined with the power of the sun, combine to make this one 



460 GREAT DISASTERS. 

of the most noted tempest regions in the world. Nowhere 
else are such terrific thunder-storms so common ; and more 
than twenty water spouts are sometimes seen at one time. 

One of the most remarkable eruptious of modern times 
is that of Papandayang, in this island, which occurred in 
1772. The mountain burst forth suddenly, with a tre- 
mendous roaring. Cinders and ashes were almost insig- 
nificant. Immense boulders were hurled about the 
neighboring regions. The mountain was veiled in a 
cloud of glowing vapor. A tract of land seventeen miles 
long and seven miles wide, with over forty villages, was 
swallowed up. Several thousand people perished. When 
the cloud finally vanished it was found that four thousand 
feet of the upper portion of the mountain had been blown 
away. The broad, ragged mass remaining was of little 
more than one-half the original height. Two other 
mountains in the island were in action at the same tkne ; 
while several intervening active cones remained quiet. 
Mt. Guntur, in the same island, has had a number of vio- 
lent eruptions. The last, occurring in 1800, sent forth in 
addition to lava streams, a torrent of white, acid, sulphur- 
ous mud, which swept a populous and fertile valley, 
engulfing hundreds of men and animals in its course. 
We shall notice by and by a still more remarkable Java- 
nese convulsion. 

Time would fail were details to be given of the numer- 
ous volcanoes of Sumatra and Celebes and the adjacent 
islands, or of the eruptions and boiling springs of New 
Zealand, or the towering cones of New Guinea, or of the 
peaks of the Canary, Cape Verde and Azores. Let us 
notice briefly a few of the more noted volcanoes of 
America. 

Our own land is free, for the most part, from such 
disturbances ; the only recorded outbreaks being those of 



OTHER GREAT ERUPTIONS. 461 

Rainier and St. Helens, in 1842. But in prehistoric 
times it had numerous volcanic areas. The Raton peaks 
in New Mexico once sent out lava streams that spread 
over the country between the Upper Arkansas and 
Canadian rivers; and St. Helens, Hood, Edgecombe, 
Baker, Rainier, Fair Weather and Shasta, are cones well 
known to the western tourist. These, except Hood and 
Shasta, are still active. 

But better known examples of great internal heat are 
found in the hot springs of different portions of the coun- 
try ; though these merely show the existence of subter- 
ranean heat, and afford no conception of its power or 
violence. Quite as famous is the famous geyser basin of 
the Yellowstone. Here is a region surpassing greatly 
the geyser district of Iceland, both in area, and in the 
number and power of the geysers. The whole region is 
pierced with fumaroles, around which sulphur and other 
minerals crystalize in beautiful forms ; and steam jets 
break through the soil in countless places. Certain of 
the geysers are exceedingly periodic ; and others, like 
the Strokr of Iceland, may be incited to action at almost 
any time by casting in earth or stones. The more power- 
ful of these " toy volcanoes " send water to a height of 
four hundred feet. 

In the southern portion of the continent and in South 
America we find a region of remarkable activity. Central 
America has had several violent convulsions at a compar- 
atively recent period. The volcano of Las Virgin es, in 
Lower California, had a great eruption in 1746; but the 
country being sparsely peopled, little harm was done, and 
the fact of the eruption was made known by the light 
and clouds seen from vessels at sea, and the ashes and 
cinders that fell in the adjacent regions of Mexico. 

If eruptions be measured by the violence of explosions, 



462 



GREAT DISASTERS 







OTHER GREAT ERUPTIONS. 463 

then the famous outburst of Cosequina must rank among 
the greatest, if not itself the greatest, that is known to 
history. The narrative of its eruption, as related by an 
eye-witness, seems almost beyond belief; but the facts are 
too well authenticated. The extent of the destruction of 
life, though certainly reaching many hundreds, was never 
definitely known. The personal narration serves to show 
the fearful impressions made upon those who experience 
such awful convulsions : 

" The wonder to me is how any man could live through 
such a burst as Cosequina's in San Salvador. 'Twas the 
21st of January, 1835 — as fine a morning as ever was 
seen on earth. The Bay of Fonseca was smooth as silk ; 
never a cloud in the sky. The lazy folks of Playa 
Grande and Nagascolo were lying in the hammocks beside 
the doors, smoking and dozing, and not a soul had a 
notion of ill from any side on that sunny morning, which 
was to be the last for half of them. They lay in ham- 
mocks and smoked and dozed like worthless cusses, as 
they are ; and most of 'em, no doubt, had full in sight the 
big mountain on t'other side the gulf. They'd nigh for- 
got to call it a volcano. Not for a thousand years, as the 
Indians told, had smoke or mischief come from that hill ; 
they'd ha' laughed silly any one as had talked danger 
from Cosequina. 

" At ten o'clock that morning that mountain burst out 
again, and in a fury such as never yet was known in the 
upper world — no, nor ever will be again, as /believe, till 
the last day. Suddenly it burst out — not muttering be- 
forehand, nor smoking — but crash ! all on the moment, as 
if to remind men what evil power was yet left in nature 
to destroy them. At ten o'clock that day the voice of the 
mountain was heard after one thousand years' silence — in 
such a thunderous roar was it heard that beast and bird 



464 GREAT DISASTERS. 

fell dead with the sound alone, and great cliffs pitched 
headlong into the sea ! There's thousands still alive to 
witness. For a while the streets of Playa Grande and 
Nagascolo must have seemed like streets of the dead ; for 
every soul was stunned. Folks were lying in their ham- 
mocks or on the floor, motionless and senseless as corpses. 
The sky was still bright and blue, but on the mountain 
side was a cloud like ink, which rolled down like a cap 
to the foot. Naught afterwards seemed so horrible as the 
sudden heaping of that jet black mound in the place of 
the sunny, green hill. 

" But it didn't long offend any man's sight — over heaven 
and sea the cloud opened and spread. Lightning and 
thunders burst from the heart of the ocean, and sheets of 
flame glared luridly the sides of Cosequina. The dark- 
ness spread so quick, that at Leon, two hundred miles 
away, they were lighting the church candles within an 
hour after the outbreak. But candles, nor torches, nor 
houses aflame couldn't disperse that darkness. For three 
days no soul in Leon saw another's face, nor ventured out 
but to the howling churches, to grovel there. Night dragged 
after night, but no day shone over the land. A lighted 
torch could not be seen at arm's length ! The ashes fell 
softly and silently, till buildings crushed down headlong 
with the weight. Tigers were in the churches, and pan- 
thers entered house doors in search of companionship and 
protection. Hundreds committed suicide in their madness, 
and hundreds more became simple for life. Men's faces were 
blistered by the hot winds ; the paint fell from the statues ; 
the crash of falling, and the faint light of burning houses 
doubled the horror of darkness. Such a time as that was 
never seen on earth since the plague of Egypt, I guess ! 

" But of course the most awful work was around the 
Gulf of Fonseca. The water rose in waves twenty feet 



OTHER GREAT ERUPTIONS. 465 

high, dashed over the Estero, and swept off the towns of 
Playa Grande and Nagascolo, slick as a prairie fire. Scarce 
a soul escaped for twenty miles about. The cattle crushed 
over the barrancas in search of water, and were destroyed 
in herds of thousands at a time ; for none could see, nor 
hear, nor breathe. Rivers were dried by the heat, and 
choked with ashes; forests burned up ; the very grass with- 
ered throughout the whole length and breadth of Nicara- 
gua, and hasn't sprung since, Sacate (' a broad flag-like 
blade') alone escaped, and the country which was once the 
grazing land of Central America was ruined till eternity, 
for that business. 

" During this time of death, as they still call it, at Balize, 
one thousand miles away, the commandant called out the 
garrison, and kept them under arms twenty-four hours, 
thinking all the navies in the universe were at action in 
the offing. There 'twas too dark to see fifty yards ocean- 
wards. The roar of Cosequina was heard miles around, 
spreading fear and perplexity. Four thousand miles in 
radius the ashes fell ; they lay on the roofs at San Fran- 
cisco, California. 

" Well, the mountain's behaved like a decent sort of 
powder- cask ever since. The fuse has always been burn- 
ing and spitting; but you see there's a big consumption of 
power in such a burst, and I guess the old machine wants 
to recuperate awhile." 

Those familiar with the terrific effects produced on the 
gunners by the discharge of heavy artillery, can under- 
stand that the atmospheric concussion produced by tre- 
mendous volcanic explosions might kill large numbers of 
birds and small animals in the vicinity. 

As to the distance to which ashes may be carried, a late 
eruption in Iceland was announced by a Professor in Ger- 
many long before any vessel brought the news. The 

30 



466 GEEAT DISASTEES. 

atmosphere was unusually full of dust which, on examin- 
ing with a microscope, he pronounced to be pulverized Ice- 
land lava. The detonations of Cosequina were heard 
over the peninsula of Yucatan, along the shores of Jamaica, 
eight hundred miles distant, and as far as Bogota in South 
America — nearly ten thousand feet above the sea. A.shes 
fell on vessels twelve hundred miles westward at sea. For- 
tunately the eruj)tion was soon over. 

Another unusual outbreak occurred in Central America 
from the volcano of Leon in 1867, beginning November 
27. First there were a number of violent explosions, 
which shook the earth for a great distance. Immense 
quantities of black sand were then thrown out, and a col- 
umn of vapor and fire, filled with meteor-like specks, w;is 
hurled to a height of three thousand feet. Closer obser- 
vation showed the " specks " to be rocks four or five feet in 
diameter, and weighing thousands of pounds. The show- 
ers of sand lasted three days, covering the earth for fifty 
miles around. The forest for leagues was scarred by the 
swift- falling showers of sand and stones; and for half a 
mile around the cone the trees were leveled to the 
ground. 

Central America contains twenty-nine volcanoes, 
eighteen of which are active. Twenty cones are in sight 
from the town of Leon. One cone, Izalco, suddenly man- 
ifested signs of activity, but no eruption took place. But 
the sudden heating rapidly melted the snow on the moun- 
tain, and the torrents of water inundated the town of 
Guatemala, destroying thousands of dollars worth of 
property, besides many lives. The mountain has since 
been known as " Agua," or water. 

South America is noted for the frequency and extreme 
violence of its earthquakes ; of which more hereafter. 
Though possessing a greater number of very lofty volcanic 



OTHER GREAT ERUPTIONS. 467 

cones than any other region, the direct effect of its erup- 
tions have not been so disastrous as the results of many 
eruptions elsewhere. There is but one very notable excep- 
tion; the earthquake that destroyed Riobaniba in 1794 
was followed at once by an outpour of mud from Tung- 
uragua, which overwhelmed forty thousand people, still 
dazed by the shock, or struggling in the ruins of their 
villages. 

One notable incident is the continual subterranean roar- 
ing heard for a considerable period over twenty-three 
hundred square miles of Northern Venezuela, a number of 
years ago, during a violent outpour of lava from the vol- 
cano of St. Vincent, an island six hundred and twenty- 
three miles to the northeast. No motion of the earth was 
perceptible. It has been supposed that the noise was 
merely the roar of St. Vincent conveyed through the 
crust of the earth ; but this would raise the question as to 
why the same noise was not audible at points nearer to St. 
Vincent? Another suggestion is that the source from 
which the lava of St. Vincent was derived lay beneath 
Northern Venezuela ; and a fact brought in support of 
this is, that the great earthquake of Caracas was immedi- 
ately followed by action at St. Vincent. Similarly, the 
great eruption of Cotopaxi, in 1744, was attended by sub- 
terranean rumbling at Honda, four hundred and thirty- 
six miles away, and eighteen thousand and one hundred 
feet lower. Between are the colossal mountains of Pasto, 
Pichincha and Popayan, with countless valleys and 
ravines. 

The cone of Cotopaxi is the smoothest and most sym- 
metrical in the world ; perhaps because its eruptions are 
almost entirely of ashes or fragmentary lava. As no vil- 
lages lie in its immediate neighborhood, the clouds of 
ashes have not done so much damage as might be expected. 



468 



GREAT DISASTERS. 



The first sign of an eruption is the melting of the snow 
upon the cone. Torrents of water sweep down the moun- 
tain. Such an outbreak occurring in 1741, after two 
centuries repose, the amount of snow accumulated may 
be imagined. The rush of the water tore away blocks of 
lava, ice and scoria ; the plain below was covered with 
dashing: waves. Twelve miles from tbe mountain the 
waters still had a velocity of fifty-six feet per second, or 
about two-thirds of a mile a minute. Escape from such 
a current would be impossible. Six hundred houses were 
swept away and one thousand people destroyed. The 
sides of the cone glowed in the night with a reddish light. 
Cotopaxi also had a great eruption in 1533, which hurled 
lava blocks containing one hundred and thirty cubic yards 
to a distance of nine miles. Such masses would weigh 
more than two hundred and eighty tons. Such feats will 
serve to give clearer ideas of the immense power of vol- 
canic action. 

Perhaps a statement of the force required to raise a col- 
umn of lava would interest the reader. Lava being about 
twenty-eight times as heavy as water, a column of it eleven 
and three-sevenths feet high, and one inch square, would 
weigh fifteen pounds. Then to raise lava to the tops of 
various volcanic cones would require pressure or initial 
velocity as follows : 



Height. 

Stromboli 2,168 feet. 

Vesuvius 3,874 " 

Hecla 5,106 " 

vEtna 10,892 " 

Teneriffe 12,464 " 

Mauna Kea 14,700 " 

Popocatepetl 17,712 " 

St. Elias 18,079 " 

Cotopaxi 18,869 " 

Sahama .22,965 " 



Pressure 


per 


Initial velocity 


square inch. 


per second. 


2,640 pounds. 


371 feet. 


4,710 


tc 


496 " 


6,195 


" 


570 " 


13,230 


u 


832 " 


15,135 


u 


896 " 


17,865 


[< 


966 " 


21,525 


(1 


1,062 " 


21,975 


11 


1,072 " 


22,380 


»< 


1,104 " 


27,756 


u 


1,212 " 



OTHER GREAT ERUPTIONS. 469 

When we remember that our powerful steam engines are 
operated by pressures varying from one hundred and 
twenty to two hundred pounds per square inch, it is evi- 
dent we can have no adequate conception of the magnitude 
of a force of twenty-seven thousand pounds to the square 
inch. And yet such a power must be but a tithe of the 
force exerted ; for it represents only the force necessary to 
throw the lava from the surface to the tops of the moun- 
tains ; whereas the lava reservoirs are far beneath the sur- 
face. Also, the above calculation considers only the mere 
weight of the lava ; it allows nothing for the resistance of 
cohesion, friction, or a heavy crust to be often burst through. 
When we consider all these, each of which must far sur- 
pass the weight of the single column of lava, it is evident 
that the pressure that can hurl lava blocks of two hundred 
and eighty tons nine miles from a mountain must reach a 
million pounds per square inch. These are meaningless 
figures. Human thought cannot grasp so stupendous a 
power. 

Perhaps the best known of the great volcanoes are those 
of the Sandwich Islands. We find there the largest ex- 
tinct crater in the world. The great dead crater of Halea- 
kala, in East Maui, is thirty miles in circumference. The 
crater of Kilauea, on the flank of Mauna Loa, is about 
seven miles in circumference. Several great eruptions 
have occurred in these islands during the past fifty years ; 
and in one of these convulsions the volume of lava poured 
out was at least equal to the great outburst of Skaptar 
Jokul in Iceland. And when we consider the frequent 
recurrence of the Hawaiian eruptions, it at once appears 
that in this region lies the greatest lava producer on the 
globe. 

But in regard to destruction of life or property, there 
has so far been no more harmless region in the world. 



470 GREAT DISASTERS. 

There are two reasons: The lava poured out is very liquid, 
and cools slowly ; hence a cone formed from it has a very 
gradual slope. The actual grade of Mauna Loa is but five 
or six degrees. So a lava stream descends it very slowly ; 
and the light on the mountain warns the people of the out- 
break. The shore region is the only one inhabited, the 
interior being covered with dense forests. So the lava 
may burn a path directly through to the sea, and yet do 
no great damage to the interests of the people. The great- 
est damage done to the island has not been from an out- 
pour of lava, but from earthquakes and sea-waves. The 
great eruption of 1868 was accompanied by continual 
shocks — two thousand being felt in a fortnight, and numer- 
ous tidal waves being produced; yet the total fatality was but 
one hundred, and nearly all of these were old or weak persons 
who were unable to swim well enough to escape from waves 
that overtook them. A few were overwhelmed by a tor- 
rent of soft, red clay that broke from a fissure in the moun- 
tain. Cliffs and crags were thrown down by the earth- 
quakes, and the top of one hill was thrown one thousand 
feet. The lava stream reached the sea at Nanawale, fifty 
miles from its source, and pushed three-fourths of a mile 
into the sea. 

Again, in an eruption in 1880, two lava streams poured 
out toward the town of Hilo ; and though the great crater 
continued in full blast, it was nine months before the peo- 
ple could be sure whether the streams would destroy the 
town or not. At length the lava was within five minutes 
walk of the town. Many collected their chattels and left. 
Then the action on the mountain suddenly subsided ; and 
in a few days the " great red dragon " lay stiff and cold, 
almost at the people's doors. 

Since the natives build their houses almost invariably 
of one story and of the lightest materials, earthquakes can 



OTHER GREAT ERUPTIONS. 471 

do comparatively little damage to -most property. Hence, 
with all the activity of the great volcanoes, the inhabi- 
tants are far more secure than those of many other 
regions apparently not so dangerous. Persons may read- 
ily visit the great crater in eruption, though at full blast; 
and excursion parties are organized to visit this " Niagara 
of fire " on every occasion of unwonted activity. Nowhere 
else in the world can volcanic action on the grandest scale 
be so carefully observed. 

The details given hitherto will serve to illustrate the 
terrible havoc wrought by subterranean forces. So far 
only outpouring of volcanic matter has been especially 
noticed. But ere examining the terribly destructive force 
of earthquakes alone, it is meet that the story of the tre- 
mendous eruptions of the century be closed with the story 
of the greatest of the age ; and indeed, when all details are 
considered, it may rank as the most tremendous convulsion 
of all history. In certain details, Skaptar may have ex- 
ceeded it : in destruction of life. iEtna surpassed it in 
1669 ; but as a whole, it is simj)ly without a parallel. 

The reader will rightly judge that such a convulsion 
could hardly occur elsewhere than in the Malayan archi- 
pelago. Already the terrible outburst in Sumbawa has 
been noted ; also several others in Java. 

Java and Sumatra formerly formed a single island, 
but were separated by a terrific earthquake in 1115. 
Shocks are felt in one of the two islands nearly every 
month. The list of calamities occurring there during the 
past hundred years is aj^palling. Besides the convulsions 
before noted, an eruption of Galung-gung, in 1822, over- 
whelmed one hundred and fourteen villages and destroyed 
four thousand people. In 1843 Mt. Guntur cast forth 
30,000,000 tons of ashes, doing immense injury to life and 
property. In 1867 there was a tremendous earthquake 



472 GREAT DISASTERS. 

which killed many thousands in the interior of the island, 
and dried up or greatly obstructed the water courses. 
Immediately afterward the volcano of Gunung-Salak 
ejected such a quantity of cinders and lava that the work 
of obliterating or obstructing the streams was complete. 
The cess-pools and marshes bred pestilence and epidemics, 
which have carried off from Batavia alone nearly a mil- 
lion of inhabitants in the past twenty-two years. In 
1872 the volcano of Mirapi burst out and destroyed 
several thousand people in the province of Kadu. Sixv 
teen severe earthquakes were felt in 1878, and another one 
in 1879. 

At length, in 1883, Krakatoa, a volcano on a small 
island in the Straits of Sunda, in the very center of the 
greatest subterranean furnace on the globe, began to mani- 
fest some uneasiness. As in the case of Cosequina, people 
had almost forgotten to call it a volcano. And when the 
mountain muttered and fired a little in February, they 
regarded it with some curiosity, and then, when it quieted 
down, thought no more about it. 

On the 25th of August the people of Batavia heard 
peculiar subterranean mutterings, as they thought, but the 
roar increased till it might have been compared to a bat- 
tery of fortress artillery. An avalanche of stones and 
ashes began to fall, and continued all night. Krakatoa 
had begun. 

By morning it was impossible for Batavians to reach 
the Straits of Sunda. The bridges were down and the 
roads impassable. The waters of the straits were in fear- 
ful turmoil. Explosions beneath the sea followed each 
other in rapid succession. The waters were sixty degrees 
hotter than usually. The rebounding waves were dash- 
ing upon Madura, five hundred miles away, mountains 
high. 



OTHER GREAT ERUPTIONS. 



473 




CATTL.K IN VOLCANIC Mm> 



474 GREAT DISASTERS. 

The dance of death had hardly begun. Louder and 
louder roared Krakatoa ; ere noon, Maha-Meru, the great- 
est of Javanese volcanoes, had joined in. Then Gunung- 
guntur opened; others rapidly followed, till fifteen 
volcanoes of Java were in eruption ; most of them in full 
blast. The awful scene was beyond description. Kraka- 
toa could still be heard thundering above all the rest. 

Before nightfall Gunung-guntur,, the greatest active 
crater in the world, four miles in diameter, was spout- 
ing enormous streams of lava and sulphurous mud. 
Tremendous explosions followed with showers of cinders 
and stones, as though the old giant were endeavoring to 
out-do the leader of the dance. Terrible was the slaughter 
by the flying fragments. 

The sea was more violently agitated. Dense clouds of 
hot, sulphurous vapors, charged with electricity, hung over 
the waters, and added whirlwinds and thunderstorms to 
the scene. Fifteen large waterspouts could be seen at one 
time. 

On the shore, men, women and children ran wildly about. 
There was no safety upon sea or land Houses were 
crumbling, the atmosphere darkening, the storm increas- 
ing. Hundreds of people were buried beneath ruined 
houses. Hundreds more were struck down in their flight. 
Immense crevices opened and swallowed ; huge waves 
rushed inland and devoured. It seemed as though Java 
were to buried, with a rain of fire, in the unfathomable 
depths of the sea. 

Towards midnight, it seemed as though the Prince of 
Darkness might be present in person to direct the work of 
destruction. " A luminous cloud far more colossal than 
that which had appeared above Gunung-guntur, gathered 
above the chain of the Kandangs, which run along the 
southeast coast of Java. This cloud increased in size each 



OTHER GREAT ERUPTIONS. 475 

minute, until at last it came to form a sort of a gray and 
blood-red color, which hung over the earth for a consider- 
able distance. 

" In proportion as this cloud grew the eruption gained 
fresh force, and the floods of lava poured down the moun- 
tain sides without ceasing, and spread into the valleys, 
where they swept all before them. On Monday morning 
about two o'clock, the heavy cloud suddenly broke up, and 
finally disappeared. When the sun rose, it was found that 
a tract of country extending from Point Capucine to the 
south as far as Negery Passoerang, to the north and west, 
and covering an area of about fifty square miles, had en- 
tirely disappeared. 

" There stood the previous day the villages of Negery, 
and Negery Babawang. Not one of the inhabitants had 
escaped. They and their villages had been swallowed up 
by the sea. The population was not so dense in this part 
of the islaud as in others, but for all this the total number 
of victims fell little short of fifteen thousand. 

"The chain of the Kandangs, which runs along the 
coast of Java in a semi-circle for sixty-five miles, had also 
disappeared. 

" The waters of Welcome Bay, in the Strait of Sunda, 
those of Pepper Bay to the east, and those of the Indian 
Ocean to the south, had burst in upon the country, where 
they formed a raging torrent." 

All the furies of the deeps of earth and sea seemed freed 
to work their will and wreak their wrath. The great Pa- 
pandayang now joined in the chaos. The cannon-like 
reports could be heard fifty miles away. 

Then Sumatra was infected with the wild fury. From 
one of her volcanoes three columns of lava shot up from 
three different places, and three leaping red streams of lava 
dashed forth for the plains below. The mountain hurled 



476 GREAT DISASTERS. 

after thein showers of stones. Volumes of black dust 
flew after, making thick, stifling darkness which could be 
felt. Banks of ashes lay upon the roofs of houses, or 
muffled the city streets. A tornado hurried by, bearing- 
stones, dust, roofs, trees, houses, and men. 

In Java the fierce Papandayang burst open. From the 
seven great fissures the lava in its basin plunged out and 
reached for miles from the mountain's base. On the site 
of the island of Merak, which was swallowed up by the 
sea, the next day fourteen volcanic mountains sprang 
up, forming a chain from St. Nicholas Point, Java, to 
Hoga Point, in Sumatra. 

In Batavia and Anjer were three thousand five hundred 
European residents ; eight hundred of these never saw the 
light again. An overwhelming avalanche of rock, mud, 
and lava, poured upon their quarter in Anjer ; then the 
sea leaped upon those struggling in the ruins and swept 
away all. Not so much as a trace of them was left. Two 
thousand inhabitants perished, besides a large number of 
fugitives from other quarters. Bantam was submerged, 
and one thousand five hundred people drowned. Waves 
dashed completely over the island of Serang, and not a 
single inhabitant escaped. The storms of rock and lava 
numbered their victims at Cheribon, and at several noted 
pleasure resorts. 

The great temple of Boro-Buddor was ruined, its dome 
being beaten in by the showers of rock. This is a most 
deplorable architectural loss. It was the largest Buddhist 
Temple in the east, and had no equal in the world. 
Erected eleven hundred years ago, it stood on an eminence 
in a circular valley. It had a great central dome one hun- 
dred and forty-five feet high, surrounded by seventy smaller 
domes. On the platforms beneath were four hundred 
and fifty chapels, cut in openwork out of granite, and each 



OTHER GREAT ERUPTIONS. 477 

having a statue of Buddha. The walls of the temple con- 
tained a complete picture-history of Buddha, there being 
tour thousand beautifully chased bas-reliefs. Not a stone 
was left uncarved. The great chapel under the central 
dome was reached by a series of four grand staircases of five 
hundred feet each. No other structure is comparable to 
it. A few may be even more splendid ; but it was decid- 
edly sui generis. 

The list of calamities grew rapidly. The town of 
Tamarang was devoured by the lava. Red-hot stones 
fired many houses. Eighteen hundred people perished. 
The island of Onius was terribly shaken and then plunged 
into the sea. The island of Midah was swallowed up. 
No one escaped. The lighthouses on Sunda Strait were 
wrecked. The town of Tjeringen was destroyed with ten 
thousand people. Nine hundred people perished at War- 
onge. Three hundred corpses were dug from the ruins of 
Talatoa. The river Jacatana was blocked with lava and 
ashes, and leaving its bed poured through Batavia. 

The island of Merak, a fortified place three miles from 
Krakatoa, was a valuable Government stone quarry, six or 
seven years in use. Thousands of native workmen were 
assembled there, with engineers and overseers. Their 
huts were on hills one hundred and fifty feet above the 
sea. The end of the season was at hand. The 1st of 
September would see them returning to their Java homes. 
The island trembled, paused — sank slowly — the sea 
plunged over it. Two natives and an European book- 
keeper escaped. 

A steamer put out from the port of Telok Betong. 
Two inches of lava lay upon her deck. Pumice stone lay 
ten feet deep on the sea around her. When but a short 
distance out "we saw a gigantic wave of prodigious height 
suddenly advancing upon us at great speed from the di- 



478 



GREAT DISASTERS, 



WHKKmamsm 




OTHER GREAT ERUPTIONS. 479 

rection of the open sea. Immediately the captain brought 
his vessel round so as to meet the wave stern foremost. 
After a moment of most piquant anxiety, we found our- 
selves lifted up with terrific speed ; our vessel bounded 
upward, and then we felt ourselves plunged into the abyss. 
But the wave had passed us and we were out of all danger. 
Like a high mountain the gigantic wave sped furiously 
towards the shore, while immediately after three other 
great waves followed it. The waters rushed in and 
destroyed the town, sweeping away first the light house, 
which fell in like a pack of cards, then all the buildings 
beyond. In a few moments all was over, and where once 
Telok Betong stood there was nothing but water." 

Livid with terror, the captain steamed rapidly to warn 
the town of Anjer. There was no longer an Anjer, a 
Dutch fort, a garrison. A single sailor, who had caught 
a floating tree, stalked about among the corpses. 

Krakatoa, which had opened this fearful carnival of 
death, sank slowly into the sea. Of the island, twenty-five 
miles long and seventeen wide, a small portion of the ter- 
ribly shattered cone remained in sight. New islets were 
made ; vast shoals created. Sailors discovered new 
islands and landed, only to find themselves on vast float- 
ing pumice rafts, miles from land. New charts had to 
be made. For a time the seas were hardly navigable. 

Such is the story. The damage to prorjerty was mil- 
lions of dollars. The loss of life will never be definitely 
known. First estimates placed it at 80,000. Conserva- 
tive judges pronounced it in all probability between 
50,000 and 60,000. 

The explosions were heard as far away southward as 
Australia ; to the westward as far as Southern India; to 
the eastward, they are said to have been heard in the 
Caribbean Sea. Even if we reject the latter, we may take 



480 GREAT DISASTERS. 

the others, and obtain some idea by imagining volcanoes 
at St. Louis to be heard at New York and San Francisco, 
at Mexico and in Hudson's Bay. 

The great sea wave rushed from Krakatoa to the 
Mauritius in eight hours. It rolled around the coasts of 
the Australian continent, dashing into the southern har- 
bors, sweeping through the narrow Bass Straits. It rose 
and fell upon Hawaiian coasts in a perplexing manner. It 
surged against South America ; against^East Africa ; it 
rounded Cape Horn and made itself known on the coasts 
of France, upon our Atlantic shore. It encircled the 
world — the greatest sea wave ever known. 

The volcanic, microscopic dust remained long in the air, 
and occasioned the singular redness of the sky at morn 
and eve that prevailed throughout the world for the next 
two years. Apart from this suspended dust, the volcano 
threw out as much matter as the Mississippi bears to the 
gulf in two hundred and fifty years. 

The atmospheric wave of low barometer was even more 
marked than the oceanic wave. On the day when Kraka- 
toa sank into the sea, the barometric oscillation was noticed 
all over the world. From the time at which it reached 
Berlin, it is found to have travelled eight hundred and 
seventy-five miles an hour. Thirty-six hours later the 
barometic oscillations were repeated, but less pronounced. 
Thirty-seven hours afterward there came a third, and still 
fainter series. It appears, then, that the atmospheric wave, 
set in motion by this stupendous outbreak, was powerful 
enough to thrice encircle the world. 

It has been but a short time since geologists believed 
the magnitude of the subterranean forces to be greatly de- 
creased ; but in view of a century of great eruptions closed 
by such an appalling convulsion, it must be said that the 
liery forces are at least as active and powerful as ever. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

EARTHQUAKES. 

" Diseased Nature oftentimes breaks forth 
In strange eruptions : and the teeming earth 
Is with a kind of colic pinched and vexed 
By the imprisoning of unruly wind 
Within her womb ; which for enlargement striving, 
Shakes the old beldam earth, and topples down 
Steeples and moss-grown towers." 

^(lICH is the theory of earthquakes as laid down by 
A^ "Wild Will Shakespeare." Whether it be an 
expression of the popular belief of the day, or a personal 
opinion, is not easy to determine. If the latter, he had, 
as we shall see by and by, many predecessors in the same 
belief. His metaphor, though more elegantly expressed, 
cannot compare with the Indian's for terseness and force : 
''Ground heap sick — heap belly ache — no good!" 

We have already seen that the forces producing earth- 
quakes and volcanic action are conceded to be practically 
identical. The latter seldom occurs without the former ; 
but the former are frequent in districts far removed from 
any known vent of subterranean heat. So the expression 
of Shakespeare is not so far wrong as might be, so far as 
our present knowledge goes. 

In the Hindoo cosmogony successi :e ages of the world 
are separated by periods of chaos ; an I no wilder image of 
unreined destruction has fancy ever dreamed. The eartli 
is to be eternal. There is one eternal, invisible spirit, Brahm, 
from whom springs Brahma, who creates a race of gods. 
These frame the earth into orderly condition, and rule it 
for four hundred thousand years. At the end of that 

31 481 



482 GREAT DISASTERS. 

time, the land and sea and sky meet in gigantic ruin ; the 
gods are no more, save only Vishnu, the preserver. The 
sea covers all things and eternal night is accompanied by 
eternal tempest. 

Eternal is not strictly correct, however. This reign of 
destruction lasts four hundred thousand years, during 
which time Vishnu sleeps on the coils of the great seven- 
headed serpent of eternity, which floats upon the gloomy 
sea. The long night over, Vishnu wakes and remodels 
the earth, and peace and light resume their sway. Seven 
such cycles pass ; all things are annihilated, and Brahm 
sets about a new creation which goes the same round. 

The eastern wise men, fond of allegory and parable, 
doubtless intended by this to express the persistence and 
order in the universe, even in periods of the most inexpli- 
cable disaster ; and to picture for the ignorant the absolute 
eternity of God. 

The thing was too good to let drop ; and others added 
to it by asserting the earth was upborne by an elephant 
who stood on the back of a tortoise. The tortoise rested 
on a fish ; the fish on water ; the water on air ; the air on 
light ; the light on darkness ; the darkness on the Lord 
only knows what. When these animals were somewhat 
wearied, they changed their position, and the earth trem- 
bled. 

Greece had a somewhat better myth of the giant Atlas, 
who bore the world on his shoulders ; but the old fellow's 
gait was not of the steadiest. Rome, not much given to 
manufacturing her myths de novo, imported the Grecian 
fable. We have to-day appropriated the old fellow's title 
for a geography supposed to contain the whole earth. The 
figure is lost on most. 

But the alleged drunkenness of Atlas did not consort 
precisely with the popular ideas of the proper conduct of 



EARTHQUAKES. 483 

a steady old porter in a responsible position ; and the myth- 
makers dragged in a new scapegoat in the person of the 
Titan Typhon, or Enceladus, supposed to be entombed in 
Mt. iEtna, as we have elsewhere noticed. 

Inhabitants of parts of Farther India and of some 
Malayan islands believe that far down in the bowels of the 
earth an immense tiger, Pelu, lies asleep. The sole object 
of his existence is to destroy the earth ; but he may not 
do this till the human race is extinct. Then he will rise 
to his feet, the earth will burst into fragments and fly into 
the distant realms of space. It must of necessity follow 
that our feline friend's existence is a somewhat monoton- 
ous one ; and to avoid ennui in his cramped quarters, he 
passes much time in sleep. Waking occasionally, and wish- 
ing like the German Barbarossa, to know if his time is 
come, he cautiously raises a few hairs on his back. The 
earth trembles, and the natives, rushing from their totter- 
ing houses throw themselves upon the ground, shouting 
loudly " Pelu ! Pelu ! " to assure his tigership that they 
are certainly alive. Satisfied on this point, the worshipful 
beast composes himself for another nap. 

Thor, the war god of the Norsemen, wielded a mighty 
hammer, Miolnir. In the "Saga of King Olaf" we find 
Thor shouting : 

" The blows of my hammer, 
Ring in the earthquake." 

Another myth attributes the earthquake to the restless- 
ness of the serpent Midgard, who encircles the universe, 
his tail in his mouth. Also, the wolf Fenrir, who is to 
take part in the final contest that produces Ragnarok, is 
supposed to have occasional differences of opinion before 
the time with certain of the fire giants. The earth is 
then liable to be shaken. 

Natives of the Tonga group, in the South Pacific, be- 



484 



GREAT DISASTERS. 



lieved that their hero-god, Maui, upheld the world on his 
breast. When he "became restless and shook the earth, 
they would rush out and beat the ground with sticks to 
make him lie still. 

From traditions concerning Mohammed we learn that 




the circular earth lies in the midst of a vast sea, and is 
encircled by an immense whale, upon whose back 700,000 
gigantic bulls walk up and down. Said whale swims 
about the earth very cautiously, but occasionally jostles it 
slightly. On the night when Mohammed was born this 



EARTHQUAKES. 485 

noble animal was so agitated with joy, that had not the 
Lord restrained him, he would assuredly have overturned 
the earth. 

The Sandwich Islanders believed that the goddess Pele, 
who dwelt in the great volcano of Kilauea, was displeased 
with the conduct of man; she proceeded to admonish him 
of her power, by shaking him out of bed in the night, or 
tumbling his house about his ears. If especially angry, 
she set her volcanic home to fuming and firing. 

So-called scientific theories on various topics have in 
time past been little more respectable, and need not be 
given any detailed attention. The pious gentry who 
deemed Roger Bacon a wizard and Columbus and Galileo 
heretics, would have listened with horror to any effort to 
explain the phenomena of earthquakes as anything else 
than a direct manifestation of the wrath of God. Re- 
searches in any branch of natural science met with decided 
discouragement in Christendom during the dark and mid- 
dle ages ; and the goddess of wisdom found a decidedly 
more congenial atmosphere at Moorish and Saracen courts. 

Hence the modern science of seismology, as the inves- 
tigations of earthquakes are called, is comparatively in 
its infancy. Yet the subject of seismic phenomena has 
been of interest to the thoughtful from a very early 
period, earthquakes being of far greater frequency than 
most persons suppose. Some of the earliest philosophers 
ventured opinions on the topic ; for the records of earth- 
quakes, more distinctly than those of volcanoes, go back 
to the earliest times. 

We find Aristotle, in his treatise on natural events, 
rejecting the explanations of three other philosophers as 
untenable, and propounding a theory of his own. Anax- 
imenes, of Miletus, suggested the drying and moistening 
of the earth occasioned irregular contraction and expan- 



486 GREAT DISASTERS. 

sion, and from the cracking and readjusting shocks 
resulted. Democritus, of Abdera, shook his earth by 
means of vast subterranean bodies of water which some 
force compelled to move from one cavity to another. 
Doubtless the peculiar wave-like motion of the earth in 
many earthquakes suggested his theory. Anaxagoras, of 
Clazomenae, believed that ether — by which the old Greeks 
seem to mean air — was confined in underground cavities, 
and in its efforts to escape upward produced the vibration 
of the earth. Aristotle substitutes for the disturbing 
agent wind, which has flowed into fissures and caverns 
and is endeavoring to flow out again. Virgil and Pliny 
stand by the old Greek ; and it is quite probable that 
Shakespeare acquired his idea from one of the three. 
\nd these, with Anaxagoras, are but little out of the way ; 
for as seen in the discussion of volcanic action, the explo- 
sive or disturbing agent is generally steam, though other 
gases are present in large quantities. 

We have already noticed that earthquakes and volca- 
noes are produced by the same causes ; but as the myths of 
many nations do not connect the two, it is evident that such 
people did not recognize their essential identity. 

But after knowing they are but variations in results, we 
cannot so readily explain the reason of the variations. 
Certain facts are well established ; and from these common 
premises widely different conclusions have been deduced. 

We know to-day that in active volcanic regions, an earth- 
quake almost invariably precedes an eruption ; and a vio- 
lent one has never, within the historic period, followed an 
eruption. So the most reasonable inference is, that the 
earthquake merely betokens the presence of a vast quan- 
tity of imprisoned vapor which has not found an outlet ; 
and that so soon as a volcanic vent is found, the pressure 
is relieved, and the earthquake subsides. 



EARTHQUAKES. 487 

But this leaves us just where the theorists of volcanic 
agency have stopped. The question of the sudden forma- 
tion of volumes of gases in sufficient quantities to produce 
such terrible effects is to be solved. 

Mr. Mallet, who is one of the best authorities on the 
subject, considers that submarine eruptions must account 
for them. A volcanic upheaval of the sea bottom would pro- 
duce crevices, by which the sea is brought directly in con- 
tact with subterranean fires. An explosion is the result, like 
those that have occasionally occurred at foundries from 
dumping masses of fiery slag into a snowbank. So what 
began with a gradual upheaval ends with a sudden con- 
cussion, the vibration of which passes along the sea bottom 
to the mainland. Every one who has lived in the city is 
familiar with the fact that the vibration produced by a 
carriage may be felt at the top of a very tall building. 

But the idea that the explosion always occurs at the sea 
bottom leaves no way to account for the fact that a volcanic; 
eruption acts as a safety-valve. Mr. Mallet's conclusions 
are largely based on personal observations of earthquakes 
in England, where no active volcano exists. 

That earthquakes are more violent and volcanoes more 
numerous on islands or near the sea coast is well-known. 
It is also well established that shocks frequently occur at 
sea, which are not perceptible on the land. The shock is 
similar to that produced by striking on a reef. Often have 
sailors been mystified, on receiving such shocks and hastily 
heaving the lead, to find the ocean unfathomable. Again, 
shocks which are most violent on land are not perceptible 
at sea, unless a great sea wave be produced ; but such a 
wave in the open sea, as often experienced, produces no 
shock but passes under a vessel like a heavy swell. And 
a shock at sea is sometimes severe enough to snap a spar, 
or wrench loose bolts like the blow of a reef, yet no trace 



488 GREAT DISASTERS. 

is perceptible on shore. Lastly, earthquakes often happen 
in inland regions, and affect but a small area. Clearly it 
will not do to attribute effects so different to explosions at 
the sea-bottom. 

Those who attribute all earthquakes to subterranean 
heat and gases, whether local or general, find it easy to 
account for the occurrence of violent earthquakes in regions 
remote from active volcanoes. In case of the gradual de- 
cline of volcanic action, such as we know from the great 
numbers of extinct volcanoes, old trap-dykes, and ancient 
lava beds, to be continually taking place in one region or 
another, the old vents or safety-valves would cool and close. 
The pent up power would in consequence gradually accu- 
mulate, till finding no outlet, it would burst the crust over 
a wide area, and so relieve the pressure. 

This finds further confirmation in the fact that the noted 
non-volcanic regions which are seriously shaken are all 
coincident with or adjacent to regions of extinct fires ; 
while in such regions as are very seldom shaken, such as 
Germany, portions of North America, Brazil, the eastern 
slope of the Andes, the traces of such agency are less 
common, or of older date. Noted regions of volcanic ac- 
tion of comparatively recent extinction are Asia Minor, 
Turkey, Spain, Southern France and Greece. These, belted 
together by the active regions of Western Asia, the pen- 
insula of Arabia, the Mediterranean, and Azores and 
Canaries, form a region which has suffered from earth- 
quakes as much as, if not more than, any other tract upon 
the globe. 

Those who have been puzzled by the appearance of 
earthquakes some distance from any actively volcanic 
region, have endeavored to divide earthquakes into two 
classes, which they have called volcanic and plutonic. 
This second class they have considered as originating, 



EARTHQUAKES. 489 

like the other, in the depths of the earth ; but have en- 
deavored to account for them by supposing them to be 
occasioned by the falling in of great caverns at a consid- 
erable depth. This theory has found a fair objection in 
the fact that in such cases an earthquake should always 
be a linking of the ground : while the wrecking power 
and peculiarities of some earthquakes indicate a decided 
upward concussion as the first of shocks ; and at the sea- 
shore, where any change in level is at once detected, 
upheaval is quite as common as subsidence. 

Much speculation has been spent upon the fact of an 
earthquake being very severe in two or three different 
localities, but being imperceptible or very mild in inter- 
vening places. In South America it has become so com- 
mon a peculiarity that the natives speak of such localities 
as "bridging" the earthquakes. Not improbably the 
reason is the same that produces calm when two waves 
interfere, crest to trough ; the motions destroy each other. 
It may be also that the character of the underlying rocks 
has much to do with such cases. Experiments with ex- 
plosions in mines show that vibrations of the soil travel 
over three hundred yards per second through sand beds, 
or about as rapidly as in the air ; over five hundred yards 
in granite ; while through iron they travel over three 
thousand eight hundred and fifty yards per second. So a 
vibration extremely destructive to a region underlaid by 
massive rocks might be comparatively harmless to a town 
on a sand-bed or mud-bank. Observations on earth- 
quakes themselves have shown great variation in the rate 
of speed. The earthquake of Germany of 1846 moved 
four hundred and ninety -two yards per second ; while 
the earthquake of Viege in 1855 traveled nine hundred 
and sixty yards a second toward Strasburg, but only half 
that speed towards Turin. So, also, the Lisbon earth- 



490 GREAT DISASTERS. 

quake traveled three times as rapidly around the coast as 
down the Rhine valley. So it must be that certain 
regions owe their comparative immunity from earth- 
quakes to the nature of the ground beneath. 

One or two ingenious savants have suggested that the 
earth is a vast thermo-electric pile, and that disturbances 
in the electrical equilibrium of the earth are the cause of 
earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. But as already seen, 
the electrical phenomena of volcanic eruptions are fairly 
considered an effect, and not a cause, of the eruptions, as 
the hydro-electric machine illustrates. In the theory of 
these men, the molten veins of the interior represent con- 
ductors which are too small or imperfect to allow the 
electricity to pass freely, and are fused in consequence. 
One of these men, Steffens, alleges that such phenomena 
can only occur where large veins of coal exist, because 
large masses of carbon would be necessary to keep up a 
strong electric tension in the interior. Herr Steffens 
must account for the fact that the great coal regions of the 
world have been peculiarly favored in their comparative 
immunity from shocks. 

Still others have advocated the idea that atmospheric 
whirlwinds and cyclones produce earthquakes. While 
not a few shocks have been accompanied by violent 
storms, the exception seems to be the rule. And in the 
case of storms, we have seen that the outpour of heat and 
vapor in a volcanic eruption would necessarily produce 
one. As concerns the winds that have accompanied 
earthquakes, they have as often come after the shock as 
before. 

But these bring up certain phenomena that must be 
noticed. It is not easy to say how great is the connection 
between electrical and atmospheric disturbances, and the 
shiverings of the earth ; but that there is some peculiar 



EARTHQUAKES. 491 

bond between them has been thought indisputable. It is 
only in the present century that scientists have carefully 
conned this matter, and generally rejected the belief. But 
the opinion is very ancient, and has a strong hold upon the 
people. It is generally adhered to by South Americans, 
Italians, West Indians, Japanese, and the inhabitants of 
Central Asia. Kamtschatkans, Kurile' Islanders and 
Japanese, assert shocks are most frequent at the equinoxes. 
In equatorial America, the natives say an earthquake is 
preceded by drought, and is the precursor of rain. In the 
Dauphiny Alps, the people regard earthquakes as the re- 
sult of avalanches ; and the latter are readily started by 
the slightest atmospheric disturbances. In Central 
America the equinoctial idea prevails. 

These things set the wise men to investigating. Much 
to their surprise, they began to discover that the idea of 
connection between the seasons and shocks seemed well- 
grounded. In 1834 Professor Merian announced that of 
one hundred and eighteen earthquakes at Basle, the ma- 
jority had occurred in the winter. Volger made a list of 
twelve hundred and thirty shocks in the Alps ; seven 
hundred and seventy -four occurred in autumn and winter. 
December showed one hundred and sixty-eight; July 
forty. Of ninety-eight quite severe shocks, but one had 
occurred in the summer. Of five hundred and thirty- 
nine earthquakes in the Rhine basin, one hundred and 
three occurred in the spring, one hundred and one 
in the summer, one hundrd and sixty-five in the 
autumn, one hundred and seventy in winter. Observa- 
tions in the Antilles show a slight predominance of 
autumn and winter. 

Another peculiar fact is that most shocks seem to 
occur at night. Out of four hundred and seventy-two 
earthquakes in 1855-56, whose time was exactly noted, 



492 GREAT DISASTERS. 

but one hundred and seventy-two happened in the day. 
Of those at night, three-fifths were during the latter half, 
forty-four being between one and two o'clock. Squier has 
told us that during several years residence in Central 
America, nearly all shocks occurred at night ; also, that 
he experienced none save at the change of seasons. 
Hence, one is almost compelled to conclude that, while 
the primal cause of earthquakes must exist in the depths 
of the earth, yet external and climatic influences are 
strong modifiers. 

Some other peculiarities are adduced to show the con- 
nection between atmospheric disturbances and earth- 
quakes. In Central and Tropical America the tempera- 
ture is said to fall after any shock. After the earthquake 
at Lechsand, Sweden, in 1856, the temperature fell 
eighty-six degrees. The same shock was violent as far as 
Smyrna in Asia Minor, where the thermometer fell at 
once twenty-nine degrees, the night being the coldest of 
the winter. Many similar cases are mentioned. But in 
view of the fact that one hundred times as many sudden 
and marked changes of temperature occur every year in 
various localities without the intervention of an earth- 
quake, it seems difficult to regard the above instances as 
more than mere coincidences. The greatest fall in tem- 
perature the writer ever experienced occurred within three 
hours of a transit of Venus ; but one swallow — nor a 
flock of them — cannot make a summer. 

Barometric observations have been dragged into the 
combat. The great Lisbon earthquake, and the convul- 
sion in Calabria, were preceded by low barometer. Similar 
observations have been made in this century. The con- 
stantly recurring shocks of 1855-56 were in each case 
preceded by fall of barometers. But Humboldt, in South 
America, and Ehrmann, in Central America, were unable 



EARTHQUAKES. 493 

to find such order ; though the shocks were so invariably 
followed by such changes that unusual earthquakes were 
believed by the natives (as is also believed in India) to 
advance the rainy season. The resultant electric phe- 
nomena might produce this expedition. 

But in this field all at present is mere guess work. 
The exceptions to any association of earthquake and storm 
are so far the rule ; except in case of a volcanic eruption 
also occurring. In the latter case a storm invariably fol- 
lows, so far as present observations go; but then the 
storm is not co-extensive with the earthquake, but is 
usually confined to the neighborhood of the volcano. 

It should be noticed that certain scientists have endeav- 
ored to prove these convulsions are due to planetary 
influence. It does not appear that they have been able to 
find the least trace of any connection between the earth's 
convulsions and the planets ; but some affirm the existence 
of an earthquake cycle coincident with the Saros of the 
moon. Effort is also made to connect earthquakes and 
volcanoes with the gigantic convulsions of the sun, 
known as "sun spots." It is argued by certain advocates 
of the molten interior that the attraction of the sun and 
moon produces an interior tidal wave, like that of the 
sea; and any irregularities in this produce the phenomena 
of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Objections to the 
molten interior have been already noted; and in regard 
to the other suggestions, so long as the great convulsions 
are peculiarly prevalent in certain regions, so long it will 
be necessary to seek their chief cause or most powerful 
modifiers in entirely local influences. 

In conclusion, it does not yet seem clear that we can rely 
absolutely upon a single cause as productive of all the 
convulsions of the earth's crust. Internal local heat, pent 
up gases, suffice for volcanic phenomena; but earthquakes 



494 GREAT DISASTERS. 

present so many peculiar variations that it seems almost 
imperative to many men to admit, at least, the modifying 
influence of other agencies. But so long as these agencies 
appear to be quite as frequently the modified as the modi- 
fier, no laws concerning them can be announced. Hence, 
internal conditions are the only clearly identified factors 
so far. 

There is quite as much difference of opinion as to how 
far beneath the surface the shocks originate. Robert Mal- 
let's investigations have led him to believe the depth can- 
not be over thirty miles, and that seven or eight miles is 
the limit for most, and his views are those of most scient- 
ists. But a few others conclude that we cannot find 
molten matter and gases to produce the concussion at a 
less depth than seventy-eight miles. But, as their con- 
clusions are based largely upon the idea that the melting 
point of minerals is raised uniformly with increasing pres- 
sure, their conclusions must be rejected as unreliable. 

The character of the motion is well known. Each point 
of the surface begins to move with the vibration first up- 
wards, then away from the center of shock, then down- 
ward and backwards. Thus, each point describes a small 
ellipse, which is repeated with each wave of vibration. 
If the longer axis of the ellipse be vertical, the main force 
of the concussion is directed upwards ; if the shorter one 
be upright, the shock is an undulatory one. An alterna- 
tion of the two forms the most destructive combination. 
The difference is readily perceived in the effects produced. 
A sudden upward shock may wreck the roofs or floors of 
buildings, while an undulatory one brings down the walls. 

Houses erected on sand, immediately overlaying com- 
pact rock, usually suffer most during earthquakes. The 
effect is that of the vibration of a sheet of glass covered 
with sand. But, if a second sheet of glass be placed on 



EARTHQUAKES. 495 

that, the vibration is hardly communicated to it at all. So, 
while sand is a bad foundation, a sand-bed beneath the 
surface seems to deaden the shock. 

It is not difficult to understand that lofty buildings, and 
those of stone or brick, must be vastly more dangerous 
than those of wood, and low and broad. Throughout 
many portions of Central and South America, the people 
endeavor to compromise, by building houses of stone, but 
low and massive, with very light roofs. These are far 
less safe than light structures of wood ; also, it is clear 
that cupolas and towers must be peculiarly liable to injury. 
For this reason, churches have often suffered more from 
shocks than other buildings, and the throngs of penitents 
who flock to them in the hope of propitiating an offended 
providence are often the first victims of an earthquake. 

" It is to earthquakes, rather than to barbarians, from 
the fifth to the ninth century, that Rome owed the loss of 
so many superb palaces and temples. One might imagine 
that in these great disasters, the architect is the ally of the 
subterranean scourge. The Indian's hut and the Arab's 
tent, may be overturned without any great loss or injury 
to their owners ; but the marble of the patrician crushes 
him as it falls, and the inhabitants of a great city meet 
their death under the ruins of their sumptuous buildings. 
The Peruvians of old were not far wrong in making merry 
at the folly of their Spanish conquerors, who, in erecting 
great buildings upon a soil so constantly agitated, were 
preparing, at great expense, their own tombs." 

It will be shown, by and by, how the motions of earth- 
quakes are becoming so carefully noted that their path 
can be pointed out beforehand. Ere many years are past, 
the prediction of earthquakes may become as important a 
feature of the Signal Service Department, as the foretelling 
of storms. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

EUROPEAN EARTHQUAKES. 

M The thunder roared his signal to the sea, 
While shook the frightened earth through all her coasts, 
And mountains bowed their trembling heads in awe, 
And yawning gulfs leaped up amid the plains. 
The fountains of the mighty deep were rent, 
The waves, long prisoned in their rocky bounds, 
Roared, in a strange new freedom rushing forth, 
And sprang on forest, plain, and mount, and hill, and vale, 
Exulting in destruction ; while the frightened hordes 
Of men, with birds and beasts of every sort, 
Fought each with each for refuge from the flood, 
Yet none escaped." 

ykJ ECORDS and myths of great earthquakes go back 
-M almost to prehistoric times. The Greeks tell of an 
immense flood — perhaps a sea wave — which overwhelmed 
Attica immediately after an earthquake in the nineteenth 
century before Christ. It is known as the deluge of 
Ogyges, from the name of the reigning king. Some three 
centuries later is the story of a great earthquake and flood 
in Thessaly, from which Deucalion and Pyrrha escaped. 
There is a still vaguer legend of an immense earthquake 
about 2400 B. C, that shook all Southern Europe, and 
Asia Minor, opening an outlet for the Black Sea, which 
had before been entirely inland. In the convulsion of the 
seas, we are told almost all the people of Greece and Asia 
Minor perished. Chinese traditions and monuments tell 
of an immense earthquake at the same period, which sud- 
denly raised the bottom of the great Northern Sea, pouring 
its waters out upon all North China and drowning the 
people. Where the great sea once was is now the great 
Mongolian Desert. 

496 



KUROPEAN EARTHQUAKES. 



49' 




THE DELUGE. 



498 GREAT DISASTERS. 

Likewise the Egyptian priests told Plato of a great 
island, Atlantis, lying off the coast of North Africa, 
stretching an unknown distance to the west ; the home of 
a mighty nation that ruled all the western world, to the 
shores of the Mediterranean, and threatened the liberty of 
the European world. It is said that they made war on 
the combined forces of Greece and Egypt; and in the 
crisis of the struggle a fearful earthquake swallowed up 
the Grecian soldiery in a single night, and sunk Atlantis 
in the ocean since called from its name, Atlantic. 

Doubtless all these traditions relate to the same terrible 
catastrophe described in Genesis. The Chinese even tell 
us in what way the " fountains of the great deep were 
broken up." It would seem that a great sea once extended 
northeastward from the present basin of the Caspian over 
the deserts of Central Asia ; and that an awful upheaval 
of this basin was the chief factor in the flood. Isthmuses 
were torn asunder : vast oceans hurled their gigantic waves 
over the continents, and over islands engulfed forever. 
The extraordinary evaporation from the unusual expanse 
of water, the sudden chilling of the atmosphere, produced 
torrents of rain. " The same day were all the fountains 
of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven 
were opened." Whatever be the truth of the traditions, it 
is certain they preserve the memory of a catastrophe un- 
paralleled in recent days. 

Of a later date, there is the story that the Ciminian and 
Alban lakes near Rome were created by a terrible earth- 
quake; but the date of this event is not very definite. 
The Japanese tell us that the great volcano, Fujiyama, 
was thrown up in a single night, and at the same time the 
lake in Oomi was created, near by, on the site of a number 
of flourishing, villages. 

Occasionally an earthquake has brought about a historic 



EUROPEAN EARTHQUAKES. 4:>9 

crisis. In the year 464 B. C, " in the fourth year of the 
reign of Archidamus, there happened the most dreadful 
earthquake in Sparta that had ever been known. In several 
places the country was entirely swallowed up : Taygetus 
and other mountains were shaken to their foundations; 
many of their summits, being torn away, came tumbling- 
down ; and the whole city was laid in ruins, five houses 
only excepted. To heighten the calamity, the Helots, who 
were slaves to the Lacedemonians, looking upon this as a 
favorable opportunity to recover their liberty, pervaded 
every part of the city, to murder such as had escaped the 
earthquake ; but finding them under arms, and drawn up 
in order of battle, by the prudent foresight of Archidamus, 
who had assembled them around him, they retired into 
the neighboring cities, and commenced that day open war, 
having entered into an alliance with several of the neigh- 
boring nations, and being strengthened by the Messenians, 
who at that time were engaged in war with the Spartans." 
But for the timely aid of others, Sparta might have been 
overthrown. The most striking feature is the astonishing 
coolness and presence of mind of the Spartans in the face 
of such a dire calamity. 

This is, perhaps, the earliest earthquake of which care- 
ful historic mention is made. But from that time, the 
record thickens rapidly. In the year 373 B. C, a great 
shock did fearful damage throughout all Greece, destroy- 
ing thousands of lives and damaging millions of dollars 
worth of property in a single night. The inhabitants of 
the Peloponnesus, roused by the convulsion, waited in 
fear for the morning. Dawn showed that the two beauti- 
ful cities of Bura and Helice were no more. The sea 
rolled above. Long after, on calm, clear days, Helice, 
once an inland town, could be seen at the bottom of the 
Corinthian Gulf: silent and beautiful in its ruin, marble 



500 



GREAT DISASTERS. 



temples and shattered homes presenting a literal " city of 
the dead." 

The year B. C. 217 found Rome and Carthage locked in 




''til' i <** 

1(1 «— \-~^ 



j ;>«& 




deadly combat. While Hannibal and Flaminius fought 
by Thrasymene, earth felt the throes of war, and shook 
Italian cities down, while lakes and streams were tumbled 
from their beds. North Africa suffered, perhaps, the 



EUROPEAN EARTHQUAKES. 501 

greatest shaking recorded in her history ; one hundred 
towns were lost, and tens of thousands of people perished. 

In A. D. 17 thirteen cities of Asia Minor were thrown 
to the ground. The Emperor Tiherius rebuilt them at his 
own expense. The grateful people presented him with a 
magnificent pedestal, which he had placed in the forum at 
Pozzuoli. 

A. D. 27 Egypt was shaken, and the great statue of 
Memnon overthrown. In A. D. 63 came a great earth- 
quake in Central Italy. 

The earthquake in A. D. 33, at the time of the cruci- 
fixion, was felt throughout Asia Minor, Greece, Sicily and 
Southern Italy. In the Syria corpses were tumhled from 
their rock-hewn tomhs. The town of Nicaea, in Bithynia. 
was totally destroyed. How many perished in this wide- 
spread shock is not known. Tradition has it that a fissure 
in a great rock, which overhangs the shore at Gaeta, was 
made by this earthquake. Till quite recently passing 
vessels were wont to salute the rock in commemoration of 
the great event. 

No city has suffered from these terrible throes of Mother 
Earth as much as Antioch. In the year 115, the Em- 
peror Trajan, extending his territories to the wilder regions 
of the Caucasus, was in the city with his army. There came 
heavy thunders, great winds, fearful subterranean rumb- 
lings; the earth shook; down tottered temples, towns, 
palaces, colonnades, statues, homes and huts, in irretrieva- 
ble ruin. The Emperor sprang from a window and ran 
for his life, like a peasant, through the streets resounding 
with the groans and cries of the unfortunates buried in 
the ruins. Mountains were rent asunder, rivers turned 
from their courses, new streams were created, old valleys 
disappeared. Eighty thousand people are believed to 
hive perished at Antioch alone. 



502 



GREAT DISASTERS. 



Ill A. D. 365 a fearful earthquake was felt throughout 
the entire Mediterranean region. The sea rolled hack, leav- 
ing fishes and vessels high and dry ; then, suddenly return- 




ing, it carried large boats two miles inland. Fifty thou- 
sand people were lost at Alexandria. Shortly before, a 
number of towns in Palestine had been destroyed, This 
second great disaster shook all Asia Minor. In every 



EUROPEAN EARTHQUAKES. 503 

town men began to talk, with bated breath, of the fearful 
wrath the Lord manifested because of those who had lent 
a willing ear to heretical doctrines. " This was why only 
the priests and holy men of the church could appease the 
Divine wrath ; and if the town of Epidaurus had escaped 
the ruin which befell all the other towns along the coast, 
it was because the inhabitants had taken the statue of St. 
Hilary to the sea-shore. The Saint made the sign of the 
cross, and the mountain of water, bending low before him, 
forthwith receded." Whence, it seems the Lord was sup- 
posed to have greater regard for crooked saintly fingers 
than for heretical doctrines. Numerous were the direful 
prodigies said to have accompanied this fearful shock. 

The next century brought calamities once more upon 
Asia Minor. A series of tremendous shocks were felt in 
458, wrecking many of the finest cities. The renowned 
Antioch, rebuilt in its pristine splendor, was once more 
humbled in the dust. Eighty thousand people perished 
within its walls ; many thousands more in the adjacent 
regions. Probably one hundred and twenty-five thousand 
in all were slain in this earthquake. 

Years passed by, bringing, from time to time, minor 
shocks which destroyed hundreds in different locations, 
but which passed with but little notice amid so many 
greater disasters, and wars and rumors of wars. Antioch 
had been gradually rebuilt, and was more splendid than 
ever before. The first quarter of the sixth century was 
past. The time of the great festival of the Ascension was 
at hand, A. D. 526. From all the country round came 
people flocking to the celebration, to witness the pageantry 
and procession. Without a moment's warning, a great 
earthquake came, as fearful as the shock four hundred and 
eleven years before. The destruction was vastly greater. 
The tottering walls crushed thousands in the crowded 



504 



GREAT DISASTERS. 



streets. Every avenue and alley became a death-trap. 
There is not, in all the pages of history, record of an 



'W" : ::.",'.;-;.". ^vt; 




earthquake of greater destructiveness. Gibbon estimates 
the number of victims at two hundred and fifty thousand. 



EUROPEAN EARTHQUAKES. 505 

Nor was Antioch thb only sufferer. The number of 
victims at other points in Asia Minor might be fifty 
thousand more. The whole sixth century is noted for the 
unusual number of appalling disasters of this sort which 
occurred at different places in the then known world. 
Probably a million people perished during this period in 
earthquakes alone. Such unwonted havoc may well 
cause us to wonder what manner of convulsions were 
occurring in the great volcanic regions of the Pacific and 
the then unknown western world. If the same genera 1 
rule prevailed then that has been noticeable in more 
recent periods; if great convulsions were then, as now, 
comparatively synchronous, it would be difficult to form 
any adequate idea of the magnitude of the disturbances. 

In 742 there was a tremendous earthquake in Egypt 
and Arabia, which overturned scores of cities and vil- 
lages, rent mountains asunder, buried people in the wrecks 
of their dwellings, tossed the sea to and fro, swallowed up 
towns, wiped out thriving seaports, and numbered its dead 
by many tens of thousands. Four years later Jerusalem 
and all Syria experienced a dreadful shock, which made 
terrible havoc. In 823, Central Europe was shaken and 
Aix-la-chapelle nearly destroyed. In 860 Persia and Syria 
were again shaken ; and in 867, Antioch, after its three 
centuries of comparative rest, was again ravaged by the 
destroyer. This shock extended to Mecca, which was 
fearfully rent. Part of a mountain in Syria was hurled 
into the sea. The century closed with a fearful convul- 
sion in far distant India, wherein no less than one hundred 
and eighty thousand people were killed. Western Syria 
suffered again in 1169 and 1202. All the cities of the 
Mediterranean coast were shaken to pieces, with the usual 
terrible loss of life. The valleys of the Lebanon district 
were upheaved and altered throughout their whole extent. 



506 



GREAT DISASTERS. 



Shock after shock came in the succeeding decades. One 
of these destroyed forty thousand persons at Bagdad 
alone. In 1759, the long list of catastrophes in Asia 




Minor was increased by one of the most terrible on record. 
At the first shock the proud Antioch was once more totally 
destroyed. Within the next forty-five days Baalbee, 
Sidon, Acre, Fcussa, Nazareth, Safit, Tripoli, and scores 



.EUROPEAN EARTHQt/AKfiS. 



507 



of lesser towns and villages were almost blotted out. The 
horrors of that period are too awful for description. 
Even more fearful, if possible, was the earthquake of 
1822, which once more made Antioch a shapeless mass of 
ruins. Aleppo, Djollib, Riha, Gisser, Chugra, Dieskrich, 
and Armenas shared a like fate. In the whole pashalic 
of Aleppo not a house or hut was left standing. Several 
severe earthquakes have followed during the century. In 
one, we are told the force of the shocks was so peculiar 



>« 



H^fflllSl 




RUINS NEAR NINEVEH. 



and powerful that in some places stone walls were con- 
verted to heaps of dust or lime. 

This record, which is but a partial one, is enough to 
explain the utterly ruined condition of Baalbec, Palmyra, 
and many other relics of ancient grandeur. They have 
contended with a force more terrible than ever was shot or 
shell of the cannonier. Thousands are familiar with the 
views of such massive columns and walls of the Temple 
of Jupiter as are still standing, eighty-four feet high from 
base to capital. The marvel is, that after such a succes- 



508 GREAT DISASTERS. 

sion of fearful quakings there is the slightest semblance of 
their former condition remaining. 

Terrible as these calamities are, not a great deal beyond 
the bare fact is known of many of them. To learn more ex- 
actly the dreadful capabilities of this stupendous agent, it is 
necessary to examine European and South American 
earthquakes that have come directly under the observa- 
tion of scientific men. From these we may learn more 
particularly of the details of various fearful shocks. 

In all Italy, so famed for its warmth and beauty, there 
is not a more lovely district than Calabria, which lies in 
the Southern portion of the peninsula. Yet no part of 
Italy has suffered such great calamities. An earthquake 
in 1693 shook the whole of Calabria and Sicily, totally 
destroying sixty towns and villages, and not fewer than 
one hundred thousand people. Eighteen thousand per- 
ished at Catania alone. Forty-eight years later a violent 
earthquake shattered one hundred and ninety towns in 
Calabria and completely swallowed up Eufemia, leaving 
only a stinking lake. But these were before the day of 
minute scientific observation. 

In 1783, a series of shocks, unequalled in recent years 
in violence, began in Calabria and continued through 
four years. The scene was visited and carefully examined 
by several able men, and from their accounts a fine con- 
ception of the whole may be obtained. 

The subterranean concussions were felt beyond the 
confines of Sicily ; but if the city of Oppido, in Calabria, 
be taken as the center, a circle around it, whose radius is 
twenty-two miles, would include the space which suffered 
the greatest calamities. Within this circle all the towns 
and villages were almost entirely destroyed. A radius of 
seventy-two miles would include the whole region affected. 

It was a calm, hazy day in February, 1783. At a 



EUROPEAN EARTHQUAKES. 



509 



quarter to one o'clock was felt the first shock, which 
" threw down, in the space of two minutes, a greater part 




i.// 



M 






!j '■ S ii Ifii 



^^mm 



ESa&jfcMSK* 



of the houses within the whole space above described. 
The convulsive motion of the earth is said to have resem- 
bled the rolling of the sea, and that in many instances it 



510 GREAT DISASTERS. 

produced swimming of the head, like sea-sickness. This 
rolling of the surface, like the billows of the sea, was like 
that which would have been produced by the agitation of 
a vast mass of liquid matter under the ground. 

In some walls which were shattered, the separate stones 
were parted from the mortar, so as to leave an exact mold 
where they had rested, as though the stone had been care- 
fully raised from its bed in a perpendicular direction; but 
in other instances the mortar was ground to powder be- 
tween the stones, as though they had been made to revolve 
on each other. 

It was found that the swelling, or wave-like motions, 
and those which were called vorticose, or whirling, often 
produced the most singular and unaccountable effects. 
Thus, in some streets in the town of Monteleone, every 
house was thrown down, except one, and in some other 
streets all but two or three ; " and these were left unin- 
jured, though differing in no respect from others. In 
some houses which were wrecked, deep foundations were 
thrown clear out of the ground, as though upheaved by a 
direct lifting. Sometimes very massive buildings escaped; 
sometimes they suffered most. Obelisks and pillars 
made in sections showed the effects of the vorticose 
motion. The separate portions were partly turned upon 
each other, without being thrown down. 

The number and size of the fissures in the soil is aston- 
ishing. " In many instances, these fissures were so wide, 
as in an instant to swallow up men, trees, and even houses ; 
and when the earth sunk down again, it closed upon them 
so entirely, as not to leave the least vestige of what had 
happened, nor were any signs of them ever discovered 
afterwards. In the vicinity of Oppido, the center of these 
convulsions, many houses were precipitated into the same 
great fissure, which immediately closed over them ; and, 



EUROPEAN EARTHQUAKES. 



511 




512 GREAT DISASTERS. 

in the same neighborhood, four farm-houses, several oil- 
stores and dwelling-houses were so entirely ingulfed that 
not a vestige of them was seen afterwards. 

In some instances these chasms did not close. In one 
district a ravine, formed in this manner, a mile long, one 
hundred feet broad and thirty feet deep, remained open ; 
and in another a similar one remained, three-quarters of a 
mile long, one hundred and fifty feet wide, and one hun- 
dred feet deep ; in another instance there remained such 
a chasm, thirty feet wide and two hundred and twenty-five 
feet deep." In another place a gulf three hundred feet 
square was left open ; again, we are told of one seven hun- 
dred and fifty feet square. A calcareous mountain, Ze- 
firio, was rent in twain for half a mile. Similar effects 
were observed in Sicily, where Messina was almost totally 
destroyed, and the ruins devoured by the flames. " In 
various places the ground sunk down, and lakes were 
formed, which, being fed by springs, have remained ever 
since. The convulsions also removed immense masses of 
earth from the sides of steep hills into the valleys below ; 
so that, in many instances, oaks, olive-orchards, vineyards 
and cultivated fields, were seen growing at the bottoms of 
deep hollows, having been removed from the side hills of 
the vicinity. In one instance, a mass of earth two hun- 
dred feet thick and four hundred feet in diameter, being 
set in motion by one of the first shocks, traveled four 
miles into the valley below. 

The violence of the upward motion of the ground was 
singularly illustrated by the inversion of heavy bodies 
lying on the surface, and which can hardly be accounted 
for, except on the supposition that they were actually 
thrown to a considerable distance into the air. Thus, in 
some towns, a considerable portion of the flat paving- 
stones were found with their lower sides uppermost. Mr. 



EUROPE A N EAKT HQUAK ES. 



,313 




fllpillIlillillllM 



514 GREAT DISASTERS. 

Lyell accounts for this effect by supposing that the stones 
were propelled upwards by the momentum which they had 
acquired, and the adhesion of one end of the mass being 
greater than the other, a rotary motion had been commu- 
nicated to them. It is difficult to conceive how a whirling- 
motion, so rapid as to produce such an effect, could have 
been communicated to a whole town without producing 
some consequences still more extraordinary." 

In many places in the plain of Rosarno, funnel-shaped 
pits were formed, with crevices radiating in every direc- 
tion like fractures in a pane of glass. These were par- 
tially filled with sand and water. 

Polistena was so absolutely wrecked that not the least 
semblance of the plan of the town could be detected. 
Terranova was precipitated, with its fourteen hundred in- 
habitants, three hundred and twenty-five feet into a deep 
gorge, and turned upside down. Moluquello, on an oppo- 
site hill between two streams, was rent in twain — one-half 
fell into the stream on the right, the other on the left. 
There was left a ridge so narrow at the top one could not 
keep his balance on it. Santa Cristena was hurled from 
the top of a sandy hill into the valley beneath. Out of 
three hundred and seventy-five towns and villages, three 
hundred and twenty were destroyed. Two hundred and 
fifteen lakes and morasses were created by displacements 
of the ground and blocking of water- courses. The pesti- 
lence bred by these vied with the direct power of the earth- 
quake. 

Some slight disturbance was manifested on the day 
before the great shock. Prince Scylla, an old man, 
warned his people to take to their boats, and himself set 
the example. When the first shock came, many of these 
people were sleeping in their boats near the shore, while 
the others were on the shore at a little place elevated above 



EUROPEAN EARTHQUAKES. 



515 




516 GREAT DISASTERS. 

the sea. With this convulsion the earth rocked, and sud- 
denly there was precipitated a great mass of rock from 
Mount Jaci on the plain where the people had taken ref- 
uge; and immediately after the water arose to a great 
height above its ordinary level and swept away the sleep- 
ing multitude. The wave then instantly retreated, but 
soon after returned again with increased violence, bring- 
ing back many of the people and animals which it had 
carried away. At the same time every boat in the vicin- 
ity was overwhelmed, or dashed against the beach, and 
thus destroyed. The Prince, who was an aged man, with 
thirteen hundred of his people was swept away and per- 
ished in the sea. The total loss of life resulting from this 
earthquake is estimated at eighty thousand. A shock 
which came on the 4th of March was as violent as the first 
one. Eleven hundred shocks were felt in two years. 

Doubtless not a few of those who perished died merely 
from hunger or confinement. Quite a number of those 
rescued after several clays were uninjured. 

If it be true that prosperity shows men in their true 
colors, the reverse is equally marked. It is hard to be- 
lieve the tales of barbarous inhumanity of the occasion. 
Says Dolomieu : " As egotism and the instinct of self- 
preservation crushed all other feeling, no help was brought 
to the unhappy victims buried beneath the ruins ; yet 
many of them might have been rescued. When calm was 
restored, the lower orders, succumbing to the vilest pas- 
sions of nature, thought of nothing but pillage." 

Like a certain class of ghouls who follow in the wake 
of armies to enrich themselves by plundering the slain, 
"men might have been seen scouring the fallen ruins, 
braving imminent danger, and treading under foot dying 
persons who appealed piteously for help, in order to go 
and plunder the houses of the wealthy. They robbed 



EUROPEAN EARTHQUAKES. 



517 



the very injured, who would have paid them handsomely 
for rescuing them. At Polistena a person of quality had 
been buried head downwards beneath the ruins of his 




mi 



house, and when his servant saw what had happened 
he actually stole the silver buckles off his shoes, while his 
legs were in the air, and made off with them. The un- 
fortunate gentleman managed, however, to rescue himself 



518 GREAT DISASTERS. 

from his perilous position. For several days cries of an- 
guish were heard coming from underground." For days 
afterward the fearful stench of putrefying corpses filled 
the atmosphere. Such were the horrors of this memora- 
ble occasion.. So sudden was the calamity that many of 
those buried supposed only their own houses were over- 
thrown and wondered why their neighbors were so slow 
to aid them. Many suffered greatly from thirst, and in 
consequence hardly felt the pinch of hunger, though en- 
tombed several days. 

One of the most notable of the earthquakes of the last 
century is the one which overturned Lisbon, November 1, 
1755. In extent of territory affected, it is the greatest of 
any known ; but because it bears the name of the place 
where it was most violent, it is supposed by many to have 
been confined to a single district. 

The morning was magnificent. At 9:35 a. m. there 
was a loud underground roar, like distant thunder, fol- 
lowed at once by a tremendous shock, which overthrew 
churches, convents, and many others of the finest build- 
ings of the city. This shock lasted five seconds. There 
was two minutes pause, during which thousands of 
shrieking people rushed about the streets to escape the 
falling ruins. Then came a second shock, and two 
minutes later a third. In five minutes the Portuguese 
capital had become a ruin, fdled with fifty thousand 
corpses. 

The churches were filled with people, it being All 
Saints' Day, and the hour of high mass. The great ca- 
thedrals were but death-traps. All apparatus that could 
be of use in the work of rescue was buried in the wreck. 
The streets were crowded with sobbing multitudes, calling 
in vain for friends and kin. 

At the sea-shore was the magnificent quay, Cays de 



EUROPEAN EARTHQUAKES. 519 

Prada. It was built entirely of marble, and just finished 
at an immense expense ; and on it, after the first shock, a 
vast concourse of people had collected as a place of safety, 
having left the city to escape the fall of the houses. But 
it proved the most fatal spot in the vicinity ; for at the 
next shock the earth opened and instantly swallowed up 
the whole quay, with the multitude which had there as- 
sembled ; and so completely were the whole retained by 
the closing of the earth, that not a single dead body ever 
rose again to the surface. A great number of small boats 
and other vessels near the quay, and filled with people as 
a place of safety, were also precipitated into the yawning 
vortex ; and it is stated that not a single fragment of any 
of these boats was ever seen afterwards. When the disas- 
ter was over, soundings were taken. Six hundred feet of 
water rolled above the marble quay and its countless vic- 
tims. St. Ubes was swallowed up by sea-waves, while 
rocks fell from its promontory into the sea. 

Then the sea suddenly retired, leaving the bed of the 
harbor exposed. A moment later a gigantic wave, fifty 
feet in height, rolled in upon the doomed city. 

Two hours later fire broke out in the wreck, and driven 
by a high wind, swept the ruins, and also the houses left 
standing. The furious flames raged three days, burning- 
hundreds imprisoned in the wreck. Every element 
seemed in conspiracy against the city. 

In addition to threatened famine and pestilence among 
the survivors, the rabble, as in Calabria, showed a disposi- 
tion to indiscriminate plunder. Upon this " the King gave 
orders immediately for gallows to be placed all round the 
city, and after about one hundred executions, amongst 
which were some English sailors, the evils stopped." The 
King was very prompt and energetic, initiating every prac- 
ticable system of relief, and having the really needy cared 



523 



V.--.I11T DlS_15TZr.' 




EUROPEAN EARTHQUAKES, 521 

for at the expense of the State.* Several lighter shocks 
were felt in the succeeding two months. At the end of 
three months the Government began to rebuild the town. 
In fifteen years it was well restored, and to-day is one of 
the handsomest in Europe. 

The immense area over which this earthquake was felt 
is very remarkable ; for not only was every part of Spain 
and Portugal convulsed, but the shocks were perceived, 
with greater or less intensity, in England, Holland, Italy, 
Norway, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, Corsica, the West 
Indies, at Morocco and Algiers in Africa, and in a part of 
South America. At Algiers the shock was so violent as 
to throw down many buildings ; and an oasis, with all its 
population, not far from Morocco, was swallowed up. Fez 
and Mesquinez were destroyed, with fifteen thousand peo- 
ple. The town of Setubal, seventeen miles from the 
Tagus and twenty-two miles southeast of Lisbon, was al- 
most entirely swallowed up. The shock was almost as 
severe at Oporto as at Lisbon. The premonitory roar was 
compared to the rattling of many carriages over a rough 
road. The loftiest mountains were shaken, and many cleft 
or shattered. Masses of rock tumbled from the crags into 
the valleys. At Colares, seventeen miles from Lisbon, 
flames and smoke were seen to burst from the Alviras, and 
also out of the sea. These phenomena continued for some 
days. A chasm fifteen miles long opened in the Pyre- 
nees. Towns were seriously damaged in Switzerland, 
France and Italy. Vesuvius, in a state of eruption for a 
period, suddenly ceased. The shock was also felt by ships 
far at sea, and, in several instances, the concussion was 
such as to make the people suppose their vessels had struck 
on a rock. In one instance, it is said that the people on 
board a vessel off the West Indies were thrown up a foot 
and a half from the deck. This circumstance may be ac- 



522 



©KKAT DISASTERS. 




EUROPEAN EARTHQUAKES. 523 

counted for by the inelasticity of water ; so that a violent 
and sudden movement of the bottom of the ocean would 
be communicated to the surface and to the ship, through 
the medium of the fluid, with nearly the same force as 
though the vessel had been on the ground itself. 

Quite as remarkable was the immense wave produced. 
At Cadiz its height was sixty feet, and the damage in 
proportion. Rolling to the northward it inflicted vast 
injury upon Cornwall, Englaud. At the Canaries and 
Azores the waves rose repeatedly to an immense height ; 
and at Madeira the injury was still greater. In less than 
an hour the wave had traveled to Leyden. Norway and 
Sweden felt its presence, even to the recesses of the Gulf 
of Finland. On the western border of the Atlantic, 
among the lesser Antilles, where the tide scarcely exceeds 
twenty-nine inches, a black wall of water twenty-two feet 
high rushed upon the coasts. The steep and rocky islet 
of Stabia was dashed over by the waves. In Martinique 
the water rose to the roofs of the houses, and then receded 
from the shore for more than a mile. The unusual com- 
motion stirred up the bituminous sediment of the sea 
bottom, and at Barbadoes the waves were in consequence 
black as ink. 

There have been numerous earthquakes since in Europe 
which must pass without mention. One in 1817 com- 
pletely destroyed Vostitza, a town in Greece not far from 
the site of ancient Helice. Another well -remembered 
one in 1855 desolated the Canton of Valais in Switzer- 
land. This country has had numerous shocks — sixteen 
hundred or more, in the past few centuries, and once or 
twice Basle has been almost totally destroyed. Valais 
itself is a beautiful vale accessible only by a cleft in a 
mountain range eighty-five hundred feet deep. Numer- 
ous small towns and hamlets are scattered about the vale, 



524 GREAT DISASTERS. 

and the precipitous slopes around are dotted with shep- 
herds' and hunters' huts. 

On July 25, 1855, after an extremely hot morning, the 
people were astounded by a great earthquake — an abrupt 
and vertical shock. Then came wave-like motions throw- 
ing every one prostrate. Houses tumbled in all direc- 
tions. People were rolled about like logs of wood. 
Nearly every village in the canton was destroyed. Great 
landslips and avalanches rushed down from the hills. So 
tremendous was the shock that the mountain tops could 
be seen to sway to and fro. Crags and blocks of ice fell 
into the vales, crushing and grinding. The terrible 
uproar sounded as though the whole range of the Alps 
was about to collapse. The terrible shocks were felt at 
Lyons, at Paris, at Heidelberg, at Milan, at Genoa. Lis- 
bon had no severer shock. And this great convulsion, 
that dandled mountains as though mere puppets, and de- 
stroyed towns and villages by the score — killed one per- 
son. It is one of the most remarkable occurrences in 
European history. 

Among the more destructive recent shocks in Europe 
are those of 1881-84. Cbio, one of the most beautiful 
islands of the Grecian archipelago, and the home of a 
thrifty and enterprising people, was visited by an earth- 
quake on April 3, 1881. The whole city, with its hos- 
pitals, schools, libraries and works of art, was laid in 
ruins in a few seconds. This convulsion forms a strange 
contrast to the more violent one just described. Numer- 
ous adjacent villages were overthrown ; and after the 
shock was past it was found that more than five thousand 
persons were killed and ten thousand others more or less 
injured. After making all possible efforts at restoration, 
the authorities were compelled to pull down many still 
tottering walls and scatter disinfectants over the wreck to 



EUROPEAN EARTHQUAKES. 



525 




SCENE AT CHIO. 



526 GREAT DISASTERS. 

avoid an epidemic from the thousand corpses left beneatl 
the ruin. 

The entire adjacent coast of Asia Minor was more or 
less shaken, and several scores of people were killed in 
some seaport towns. The shocks continued several days, 
each being accompanied by a peculiar subterranean roar- 
ing. Two years later, ere the town was fairly rebuilt, 
there was another earthquake, which, however, did more 
damage in Asia Minor than in Chio. 

But the most striking example of great damage done 
by an earthquake in a very small tract is the case of the 
island of Ischia. This tiny islet, the Imarina of Horace 
and Virgil, was well known to the Greeks, who at one 
time endeavored to establish themselves upon it, but were 
finally driven away by repeated volcanic outbursts. Since 
the activity of Vesuvius, Ischia has remained quiet, 
though a dozen extinct craters bear witness to its former 
fury. Its highest point is two thousand, seven hundred 
and seventy-two feet above the sea, while the entire island 
is but six miles in diameter. It is evidently cast up by 
an ancient, submarine volcano. 

Situated a few miles from Naj^les, Ischia has for years 
been a favorite summer resort for the Italians of the 
neighboring coast. A score of little towns and villages 
dot its shores and hills, and the view of the Gulf of 
Naples, Baiae, and adjacent islands and coasts forms one 
of the most beautiful landscapes in the world. 

After its abandonment by the Greek colonists the islet 
was quiet for sixteen centuries. In 1302 an eruption and 
earthquake occasioned considerable loss of life and prop- 
erty. After that, though the main peak, Epomeo, has 
been occasionally muttering and fuming, no serious dis- 
turbance occurred for nearly six centuries. The subterra- 
nean heat occasions numerous hot springs, the water reach- 



EUROPEAN EARTHQUAKES. 527 

ing a temperature of 178 degrees. These baths, and the 
abundance of choice fruits afforded by the island, afford 
additional attractions to visitors, and the twenty-five thou- 
sand inhabitants would seem to have an earthly paradise. 

March 4, 18S1, the people were suddenly roused from 
their slumbering security by two sharp shocks half an 
hour apart, which overthrew seven hundred houses in the 
little town of Casamicciola, killing one hundred and 
twenty-six people and wounding one hundred and seven- 
ty-seven more. The only premonition was that a few 
minutes before the hot springs suddenly reached the boil- 
ing point. 

Yet this disaster was comparatively insignificant when 
we consider the one of July 28, 1883. 

It was the height of the summer season. The little 
island was thronged with pleasure-seeking visitors. The 
night was dark and cloudy; the sea was unusually agi- 
tated. The small theatre at Casamicciola was filled with 
an animated throng, who cared not for the boding storm. 
The play opened with an earthquake scene. As the clock 
pointed to 9:32, the Punchinello rushed on the stage, 
shouting, " Un terremoto ! un terremoto! alia mare! alia 
mare!" (An earthquake ! an earthquake! to the sea! to 
the sea!) The audience thought it was part of the play; 
but ere they could applaud the vigorous acting, the lights 
were out, a thundering sound was heard, and the crashing 
roof was upon them. The appalling roar was followed by 
profound silence, as clouds of stifling dust were whirled 
up by the wind. Then in the darkness were heard the 
cries of terrified people, seeking one another in the gloom, 
and groping for the shore as in the days of Pompeii. 

A visitor who was in the theater said, that at the first 
noise, which resembled the discharge of a heavy battery 
of artillery, " not a cry was uttered, though terror was 



528 GREAT DISASTERS. 

depicted in every countenance ; but when the first shock 
was followed by several others, a shriek of despair went 
up from every lip. The lights went out, pieces of timber 
were falling all about us, and cries of terror were suc- 
ceeded by shrieks of pain from those who had been in- 
jured. It was a trying moment. When the shocks ceased, 
I crawled, like many others, out of the ruined building in 
order to reach the shore. The dust was literally blind- 
ing. Several times I stumbled over heaps of masonry and 
rubbish from which heart-rendering groans and shrieks 
ivere proceeding. Upon the shore I encountered many 
others as frightened as I was, and endeavoring to escape 
in fear of there being more shocks. Seeing that all re- 
mained quiet, we retraced our steps in order to relieve 
the injured. But it was not until the morning, upon the 
arrival of the authorities and the troops sent from Naples, 
that it was possible to take any effective steps for sur- 
mounting the difficulties by which we were surrounded. 
The firemen, assisted by volunteers, then set to work ener- 
getically to clear away the rubbish, laying the dead bodies 
in a row, and handing the injured over to the doctors. It 
was necessary to go to work very carefully, so as not to 
injure those still unhurt; and so the work continued very 
slowly, during which time we felt our heart-strings torn 
by the piteous appeals for relief. Some peojitle were cov- 
ered by so much debris that it took hours to reach them, 
and when we did so, some of them had succumbed to their 
injuries, while others had gone out of their minds. The 
dense clouds of dust had choked many of those who were 
not killed on the spot." 

Some strange scenes occurred ; and there were instances 
of remarkable coolness. An Italian professor of surgery 
who had taken his child to the theatre, coolly took out his 
watch at the first crash, and noting the exact time, sat 



EUKOPEA X EA RTHQUAKES. 



52\) 




34 



THE PANIC AT CASAMICCIOLA. 



530 GREAT DISASTERS. 

perfectly still while the surging crowd endeavored to es- 
cape. There he sat with his child till morning, when the 
light enabled him to find his way out of the wreck. 

The sea shore was a weird spectacle. Lighted up by 
a pile of blazing drift might be seen scores of naked chil- 
dren, and grown persons in their night clothes, scurrying 
wildly about. An eye-witness tells of many crazy with 
fear and grief. All night long the wreck resounded with 
groans and cries. One woman, whom he heard continu- 
ally moaning, and crying " My children ! my children! " 
was found at daybreak on the edge of a shattered terrace, 
and clad only in a chemise. Wondering what he could 
say by way of consolation, he chanced to observe two lit- 
tle ones playing not far away amid a tottering wreck that 
threatened at every moment to crush them. They were 
hers. 

Further down a woman's jewelled arm and shoulder 
protruded from the wreck, while her husband, buried 
nearly, kept crying "save her, never mind about me." 
A.s a helping hand was reached to her a sudden landslip 
crushed out the remaining life. 

A young English lady sat playing a funeral march. 
An Italian count sprang up, saying, " I cannot stand such 
music ! " Just as he cleared the door the hotel fell in 
ruins behind him. The young lady was found dead at 
the piano. 

For days the work went on, pressed by the energy of 
the Italian government. All the native police had been 
killed in the wreck. King Humbert in person visited the 
scene and had the work pressed as rapidly as possible. 

There was no more complete wreck of any town than of 
Lacco Ameno. Of fifteen hundred and ninety-three peo- 
ple but five escaped. At Casamicciola but one house was 
left intact, Not a few houses in the former place were 



EUROPEAN EARTHQUAKES. 531 

swallowed up in fissures. Floria was totally destroyed. 
Yet the largest town on the island, Ischia, with the adja- 
cent villages, was scarcely hurt ; and at Naples, on the 
mainland, the news of the catastrophe was a complete sur- 
prise. Yet on the half of the islet that was most severely 
shaken the earthquake numbered four thousand victims. 
A greater contrast to the great Valais earthquake could 
hardly be imagined. 

Still more recent is the catastrophe of Southern Spain, 
one of the loveliest regions in the world. This district 
has several times been shaken ; but notably at the time of 
the Lisbon earthquake, when so much damage was done 
by shocks and sea-waves at Cadiz; again in 1833, when 
in the single province of Murcia more than four thousand 
houses were destroyed, with hundreds of the inhabitants. 
Again the ground was in a state of constant tremor from 
November, 1855, to March, 1856. 

But more severe than these was the shock of 1884. 
About the end of November slight vibrations were per- 
ceptible in Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Southern France. 
The shocks did not manifest especial intensity at any 
especial locality, and no attention was paid to them, as 
such occurrences are so frequent that they cannot be re- 
garded as indicative of greater shocks to come. For 
example, there were forty-six hundred and twenty shocks 
recorded in different portions of the earth during the years 
1850-57 ; yet none of these were followed by earthquakes 
of great severity. So in the case of the November shocks 
of 1884, no one seemed concerned to know where they 
originated, or if they boded evil. 

But on Christmas day, 1884, there came, a little past 
nine at night, an intense subdued roar like that of a hur- 
ricane ; and at once the plateaux of Andalusia, the moun- 
tains of Murcia, and the sunny plains of Granada, Jaen 



532 



GREAT DISASTERS. 




GREAT EARTHQUAKE IN ANDALUSIA. 



EUROPEAN EARTHQUAKES. 533 

and Cordova shook from one end to the other. At Seville the 
terrified people rushed into the streets and camped there 
all night ; but this city did not suffer so much as in the 
shock of 1755. In Granada the motions followed in rapid 
succession for several weeks ; but though many other 
buildings were overthrown, the far-famed Alhambra was 
not injured. Twenty thousand people camped without 
the city gates. 

The shocks were much severest in the mountainous dis- 
tricts. Villages and hamlets in ravines and along moun- 
tain slopes were speedily destroyed. The town of Alhama 
lost thirteen hundred and twenty houses at the first shock. 
Five hundred and seventy-six bodies were taken out of 
the ruins. Two hundred and eighty houses were over- 
thrown by subsequent shocks. Abumelas lost five hun- 
dred and seventeen people, and four hundred and sixty- 
three houses out of four hundred and seventy-seven. 
More than three thousand houses were wrecked through- 
out Andalusia and Granada. Fifty-six towns and hamlets 
were greatly damaged, twenty of them entirely destroyed. 
Parts of mountain slopes slid slowly into the valleys. 
Deep crevices, like those of the Calabrian earthquakes, 
were opened in some localities. One of these is two miles 
long and of unknown depth. Boiling water burst from 
fissures in the mountains. The course of the river Gogol- 
las was changed. Portions of the country was upheaved ; 
others depressed. Shocks were felt at sea near the Azores. 

Several thousands were killed and wounded, and the 
survivors suffered much from cold and hunger. The 
young King Alfonso took active part in the work of relief; 
but so numerous were the dead that many of them had to 
be buried in heaps or covered with quick-lime. There 
was not time to bury all properly. 

Such are details of the more prominent European earth- 



534 GREAT DISASTERS. 

quakes. There have been others of almost equal import- 
ance ; but three years ago a severe earthquake killed two 
thousand or more in the Italian Riviera ; but the cases 
given well illustrate the destruction wrought in Europe, 
and other regions claim attention. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

EARTHQUAKES IN THE UNITED STATES AND ENGLAND. 

The fowls of every hue, 
" Crowding together, sailed on weary wing, 
And hovering, oft they seemed about to light, 
Then soared as if they deemed the earth unsafe. 
The cattle looked with meaning face on man, 
Dogs howled, and seemed to see more than their masters, 
And there were sights that none had seen before. 
And hollow, strange, unprecedented sounds, 
And earnest whisperings ran along the hills, 
At dead of night : and long, deep endless sighs 
Came from the dreary vale ; and from the waste 
Came horrid shrieks, and fierce unearthly groans, 
The wail of evil spirits that now felt 
The hour of utter vengeance near at hand. 
The winds from every quarter blew at once, 
And shapes, strange shapes, in winding sheets were seen, 
And voices talked amid the clouds : and then 
Earth shook, and swam, and reeled, and oped her jaws, 
By earthquake tossed and tumbled to and fro." 

IT is a common assertion that when persons are drown- 
ing, all the events of past life rush suddenly before 
them with startling distinctness: sometimes in amusing 
combinations : generally the reverse. 

Something of the same effect is produced by the earth- 
quake ; but in a far more terrifying way. Each one is 
witness to the panic of his neighbor ; and no fright is so 
terrible as that which is infectious. In moments of great 
peril a single calm master-spirit may quiet a mob. But 
when the eternal hills are shaken, when the groaning 
earth reels beneath the feet, and the mountains are removed 
and cast into the midst of the sea, who is there that retains 
his presence of mind? Man's social arrangements are 

535 



536 GREAT DISASTERS. 

calculated upon a supposition of the earth's stability : and 
when he finds himself the victim of misplaced confidence, 
there is neither courage nor spirit nor reason left in him. 
Numerous are the cases where men have been rendered 
insane by such convulsions. 

To the ravage of the hurricane, the roar of the storm, 
the surge of the sea, the rush of the flood, one becomes in 
a measure accustomed, and in the moment of danger may 
take precautions for personal safety. But in the case of 
earthquakes the reverse is the rule ; none dread them 
more than those who know them best. The stranger in 
tropical America may sit at his ease on a summer evening, 
enjoying the beauties of the landscape ; or he may stand 
in a crowded hall, amongst a galaxy of wits and beauties, 
observing the kaleidoscopic movements of the gorgeous 
costumes before him. There comes a faint peculiar quiver 
of the earth, so insignificant that the unitiated foreigner 
may hardly observe it : but there goes up a wild shout of 
" Tembla ! Tembla ! " and in an instant a terror-stricken, 
breathless throng surges wildly into the streets, the fields, 
the parks — anywhere : anywhere away from the heavy 
roofs and massive walls that would defy a hurricane ; all 
blindly seeking to be under the open sky, only too often 
to be engulfed in gaping crevices. 

It is preternaturally terrible ; this emblem of solidity 
quivering beneath our feet, reminding us that the days of 
unbridled chaos, the wild war of all the elements, the tre- 
mendous geological convulsions that have exterminated 
so many races of animals in the days of the past, may 
be as ready and powerful for destruction in the present ! 
The sensation of utter powerlessness is so overwhelming, 
that amid the crash of falling houses, the cries of entombed 
victims, the shrieks of flying multitudes, the rumblings in 
the earth beneath, and the trembling of the soil like that 



EARTHQUAKES IN THE UNITED STATES. 537 

of a steed in the presence of a lion, the boldest and bravest 
can but sit with bowed head, in silent, motionless despair, 
awaiting whatever fate a grim capricious chance may 
determine. In the strange mysterious phenomena, which 
strike and do their work in a few seconds, one is disposed 
to see the disturbing dreams of fever, or the touch of a 
horrible nightmare, rather than any possible reality. 

It is no wonder that insanity, hallucinations, or graver 
nervous disorders, in such moments fasten themselves 
on people for life. When a power, which despite its 
constant recurrence, remains almost unknown, holds the 
lives of untold thousands in its grasp, the mind is affected 
beyond the power of pen to describe. Long stress of 
poignant grief finds its effects equalled in a few seconds. 
People dash convulsively on the ground, as though seized 
with epilepsy. Some may become paralyzed : paralytics 
may recover the use of their limbs : others lose the power 
of speech : yet others are hopelessly idiotic. Not less 
marked are the effects on the brute creation. The owl, 
with nervous twitching head, and feathers all awry, flits 
to the trees near the house, as though imploring the pro- 
tection of man. The panther forgets his ancient enmity, and 
creeps within the city gate. The screaming swallow leaves 
the eaves, and wings her way to other lands. The long- 
silent crocodile scrambles from his native lair and rushes 
moaning about the sand. The frightened nightingale for- 
gets her song. The doleful dog howls loudly in the street. 
The trembling ox and horse together huddle, and groan 
as they tremble. The air itself is chill, as though it were 
turned cold at the manifestation of some awful being. 
All things are awed by the terrible " Wrath of God." 

The " Wrath of God ! " Yes, such is the actual name of 
the earthquake among the modern Greeks — Theomenia. 
No other title will they give it. They have braved the 



5SS 



GREAT DISASTERS. 




EARTHQUAKES IN THE UNITED STATES. 539 

storm and the flood, the famine and the pestilence for 
three thousand years, and recognize in each the operation 
of law, and against each may take precautions ; but the 
earthquake, absolutely beyond control, is to them inexpli- 
cable by natural causes, and any attempt to explain it is 
resented. They know the quicksand in which the victim, 
erect, vigorous, in full possession of his faculties, stares his 
fate in the face ; stands for hours with death grinning 
from the sand at his feet, as it slowly drags him down ; 
but this fearful opening of the soil, that in an instant 
swallows young and old, rich and poor, the loved and 
hated, the city and the castle — it can only be the " wrath 
of God ! " So to the Jew was the fall of Sodom. 

Not a single agent of nature can equal it in sudden de- 
struction. It comes and it goes in a few seconds ; almost ere 
you are aware of its presence it has claimed its thousands. 
There is no escape ; no ruin so absolute ; no desolation so 
pitiful ; no death so remorseless. You stand chatting with 
a friend, the earth shakes, gapes, — and the friend at your 
side finds a grave in the foundations of the earth. " Two 
women shall be grinding at the mill, the one shall be taken 
and the other left." 

"Think ye that those twelve on whom the tower of 
Siloam fell were sinners above all that are in Jerusalem ? 
I tell you nay." 

So, as we have already seen, the phenomena of earth- 
quakes are as clearly under the domination of law as any 
other forces of nature. We know the forces that produce 
them, and though we can not tell with certainty what com- 
bination of them existed at the location of any particular 
shock. We can not hope to control the causes, but we can 
to a large extent avert the seriousness of the results. With 
this in view, we can consider seriously the extent of the 



540 GREAT DISASTERS. 

ravages of this strange destroyer, without considering 
them as direct visitations upon the sins of a people. 

Such views as those of the Greeks, however, have been 
common among all Christian nations of non-Saxon origin, 
and still prevail to no small extent. But the peculiar 
sense of personal responsibility and power that belongs to 
the Teuton, Scandinavian and Saxon stock has given a 
different impress to British and American ideas. Per- 
haps, too, the fact that Britons and Americans have suf- 
fered less from earthquakes than many others, has gone 
far to modify the trend of their thought. Be that as it 
may, the dominant element of the race — reverence, awe, 
and with common sense and a dash of contempt for those 
of more superstitious disposition, may be found in the old 
hunter's comment on the outburst of Cosequina : " What 
was the meaning of those shakes in New Granada a month 
agone? Natur' don't mostly toss about this big earth 
just for sport and idleness ; there's a meaning and a rea- 
son and a secret in every movement she makes. But 
eighty earthquakes in twenty-four hours aren't sent just to 
scare a pile of Nicaraguan Greasers. Guess earthquakes 
don't take no more regard of Greasers than of other big 
folks ! " 

So long as superstitious ideas prevail among a multi- 
tude of people, it is not surprising that they find porten- 
tous signs in earth and sky betokening the near approach 
of the dread visitation. This is naturally increased by the 
desire to have due warning. The ancient Greeks were es- 
pecially anxious in this regard. So we find one of their 
grave geographers, Pausanias, declaring that earthquakes 
are preceded by unusual rain or drought, eclipses, sudden 
disappearing of springs, great hurricanes, fiery apparitions 
in the sky with long trains of light, and the appearance of 
new stars in the sky. The people of Mendoza, South 



EARTHQUAKES IN THE UNITED STATES. 541 

America, when overtaken by a great earthquake, suddenly 
remembered that but a short time before, a flaming meteor 
of a brilliant blue color and awful appearance had hissed 
past their town. So before the Riobamba earthquake, a 
brilliant shower of meteors took place; so, also, at the 
Cumana earthquake. At other times the weather has 
been unusually rainy; again, long drought has prevailed. 
Sometimes springs have become suddenly muddy, and 
cleared as suddenly after the shock. Again, muddy streams 
have become clear till the shock passed. Again, we are 
told that all animals manifest great fear before the earth- 
quake comes ; that lizards, snakes, mice and rats rush from 
their holes in terror. Doubtless many smaller animals 
perceive tremors of the earth that pass unnoticed by men; 
but as to the efficacy of such signs in general, it is sug- 
gestive of Hotspur's reply to Glen dower. The fiery 
Welshman, endeavoring to prove that he, too, is some great 
one, asserts that at his nativity 

" The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes, 
Of burning cressets : and at my birth, 
The frame and huge foundations of the earth 
Shaked like a coward." 

To which Hotspur answers : 

" Why, so it would have done, 

At the same season if your mother's cat 

Had kittened, and yourself had ne'er been born ! " 

So much for popular beliefs. Quite generally there are 
subterranean rumblings, or slight tremors preceding the 
more violent shock ; but even these are not sure signs, as 
they may occur alone, or the earthquake may come unan- 
nounced. A notable case of the former sort is the re- 
markable subterranean roaring heard at Guanaxuato, in 
Mexico, in 1784. It lies in a rich mining district, with 
no volcano in the vicinity. On January 9 there broke 
out, after some preliminary muttering, a great uproar 



542 



GREAT DISASTERS. 



which seemed as if a thunder storm were going on beneath 
the surface of the earth. A short distance from the town 
it could not be heard ; and not the slightest tremor of the 
soil was perceptible, even in mines sixteen hundred feet 
deep. But so great was the panic it created, that thou- 
sands fled from the town, leaving it entirely to the mercy 
of thieves and bandits. The alcaldes, with true Spanish 
grandiloquence, asserted that the government would " be 
able in its wisdom to say when danger is imminent, and to 
take measures for enabling the people to fly for refuge;" 
and it determined to impose a penalty of one thousand 




HOUSES THROWN INTO A RAVINE BY AN EARTHQUAKE. 

piasters on the rich, or of two months imprisonment on 
the poor who fled ere the word was given. But though it 
was easy to make laws, it was not so easy to feed the 
people; for the affrighted peasantry would not set foot in 
the city ; so the month of uproar became one of famine 
as well. 

A similar rumbling occurred in Melada, an island off the 
coast of Dalmatia, in 1822, and the frightened inhabitants 
besought the Austrian government to transport them to a 
place of safety ; but though the explosions continued dur* 



EARTHQUAKES IN THE UNITED STATES. 543 

ing two years, sometimes more than one hundred in a 
single night, nothing ever resulted therefrom. 

So with regard to all popular beliefs on this topic — no 
dependence can be placed on any of them. There is 
nothing to warn us of the approach of the earthquakes, 
neither in the heavens above, nor the earth beneath, nor 
the waters under the earth. 

Has the reader ever experienced one of these strange 
earthstorms ? Perhaps not. Is it believed they are rare ? 
They are as common as storms in the atmosphere. Within 
a period of seven years, four thousand six hundred and 
twenty have been recorded. Many more, doubtless, occur- 
red completely beyond the jmle of civilization. Hundreds 
have passed unnoticed save by delicate instruments. Not 
a day passes without several being recorded. They are 
as widely various in power as the storm and the breeze. 
Not a region on earth is unvisited by them. 

Yet the reader will be disposed to think that the United 
States is almost free from these visitants. To a certain 
extent it is ; we have not in all our history, had a shock 
of extreme violence, or one that can compare in destruc- 
tiveness with the strange convulsions of tropical regions : 
but in the rarity of shocks we are not so favored as might 
be supposed. A few moments consideration of the records 
will be sufficiently convincing. 

In the memoirs of the " Academy of the Arts and 
Sciences " in Boston, is a paper read in 1783 by Prof. 
Williams, recounting the story of some of the earlier 
earthquakes in our history. 

The first one noticed after the landing of the Pilgrims 
occurred June 1, 1638. We are told it was preceded by a 
rumbling noise like remote thunder, which gradually grew 
louder and nearer. Then the earth began to quake till 
pewter and crockery tumbled from the shelves, stone walls 



T)44 



GREAT DISASTERS. 







EARTHQUAKES IN THE UNITED STATES. 545 

toppled over, and chimneys crumbled and fell. The 
shock passed from northwest to southeast, and was fol- 
lowed by a second in half an hour. People found it diffi- 
cult to keep their feet. It occurred in the afternoon but 
there is no means of knowing what area was affected. As 
the country was then unsettled, the damage done was of 
course nil. Nearly four years later occurred a light 
shock, barely noticeable, in the same region. In 1653 an 
earthquake on the 29th of October stirred up the Puritan 
divines to admonish their flocks of the wrath of God. 
Still another occasion of the same sort was given in 1658. 
But of this latter, though we are told it was a very great 
earthquake, we have neither day nor month, nor any 
record of its violence, extent or duration. 

The first convulsion of which there is any detailed 
account, occurred in 1663, January 26-28, Old Style. 
An old narrative thus records it : 

" About half an hour after five in the evening a most 
terrible earthquake began. The heavens being serene, 
there was suddenly heard a roar like the noise of a great 
fire. Immediately the buildings were shaken with amaz- 
ing violence. Doors opened and shut of themselves with 
a fearful clattering. The bells rang without their ropes 
being touched. Cracks appeared in the walls of build- 
ings, and floors separated and in some cases fell down. 
Chasms appeared in the fields, and the hills seemed to be 
in motion. The fright of the inhabitants was shared by 
the beasts and birds, who sent forth fearful cries, bowlings 
and bellowings. The duration of this earthquake was 
very uncommon. The first shock continued half an hour 
before it was over, but it began to abate about a quarter 
of an hour after it began." (Probably there were a con- 
siderable number of shocks, gradually lessening in 
violence.) 

35 



546 GREAT DISASTERS. 

"The same day about eight o'clock in the evening, 
there came a second shock, equally violent as the first, 
and within the space of half an hour, there were two 
others. The next day about three hours from the morn- 
ing, there was a violent shock, which lasted a long time, 
and the next night counted some thirty-two shocks, of 
which many were violent. Nor did the trembling of the 
earth cease until the July following. Many trees were 
torn up, and the outlines of the mountains appeared to be 
much changed. Many springs and small streams were 
dried up; in others the waters became sulphurous, and 
the channels in which some had run were so altered as to 
be unrecognizable. Half way between Tadousac and 
Quebec two hills were thrown down and formed a point of 
land which extended half a quarter of a league into the 
St. Lawrence River. The island Aux Coudres became 
larger than it was before, and the channel of the St. Law- 
rence was greatly changed." 

This is, perhaps, as severe a shock as has been felt in 
this country ; but though the shock extended southward 
to Pennsylvania, its chief energy was centered in a nar- 
row strip on the St. Lawrence, giving our Canadian 
neighbors the lion's share of the fright. Other light 
shocks were noticed in New England in 1665, 1668, 1669, 
1670, 1705, and 1720. 

October 29, 1727, another severe earthquake was expe- 
rienced about 10:40 p. m. It seems to have had Southern 
New Hampshire as its focus, extending thence to the Del- 
aware and Kennebec rivers. Its approach was heralded 
by a subdued roar from the northwest, which, as it drew 
nearer, "was thought to be the roar of a blazing chimney 
near at hand, and at last was likened to the rattling of 
carriages driven fiercely over pavements. In about half a 
minute from the time the noise was first heard, the earth- 



EARTHQUAKES IN THE UNITED STATES. 547 

quake was felt. It was observed by those who were abroad 
that, as the shake passed under them, the surface of the 
earth rose and sank." Houses trembled and rocked, as 
though about to fall to pieces. Movables were dashed 
about with a fearful clatter. Crockery was smashed ; stone 
walls and chimneys thrown down. 

At Newbury, ashes and sulphur were cast forth from 
the earth, and also volumes of sand. Sulphuretted hydro- 
gen seems to have been present in large quantities : also 
chemicals readily decomposed by warmth and moisture* 

A correspondent of the Royal Society wrote that a cler- 
gyman near Boston assured him " that immediately after 
the earthquake there was such a stink that the family 
could scarce bear to be in the house for a considerable 
time that night." Another clergyman writes that in the 
following April the fine sand thrown up by the earthquake 
"had a very offensive stench — nay, it was more nauseous 
than a putrefying corpse : yet, in a very little while after, 
it had no smell at all. How long it was before it began to 
have this stench, I am not certain ; but I believe it was 
covered with snow until a little while before." Another 
minister records that " about three days before the earth- 
quake there was perceived an ill-stinking smell in the 
water of several wells. Some searched their wells, but 
found nothing that might thus affect them. The scent 
was so strong and offensive that for eight or ten days they 
entirely omitted using it. In the deepest of these wells, 
which was about thirty-six feet, the water was turned to a 
brimstone color, but had nothing of the smell, and was 
thick like puddle water." Some wells, dry just before the 
shock, immediately filled up. Occasional shocks were felt 
for some months after. 

From the phenomena present here, and in many sim- 
ilar cases, it will appear that large volumes of pent-up 



548 



©REAT DISASTERS. 




EAETHQUAKES IN THE UNITED STATES. 549 

gases may be discharged in districts remote from any vol- 
canic region. In some instances, we are informed that im- 
mediately after severe shocks, the streams and vegetation 
have proved poisonous to cattle. There were light shocks 
felt in 1732, 1737 and 1744 ; but none of these are said to 
have done any damage beyond throwing down a few stone 
walls. Thus we find within a century fourteen earthquake 
periods in New England alone ; and in several cases the 
shocks were numerous, extending over a period of several 
months. Comparing the small area with the whole re- 
gion, and remembering that shocks are more frequent in 
the central, southern and western portions of the country, 
it is fair to conclude that the merest tithe of those actually 
occurring could have come under the notice of our an- 
cestors. 

The most violent shock ever known in New England 
came eighteen days after the great Lisbon earthquake of 
1755, preceded by a peculiar, rumbling roar. Then came 
a "rapid, jarring, vibrating motion," with an upward 
shock: then a "violent, prodigious shock, as suddenly, to 
all appearances as a thunderclap breaking upon a house 
and attended by a great noise." Then followed a series of 
"quick and violent concussions, jerks and wrenches, at- 
tended by an undulating, waving motion of the whole sur- 
face of the ground, not unlike the shaking and quaking of 
a large bog." 

Several writers give a graphic account of the behavior 
of the good people of Boston at this juncture. The shock 
came at a little past four in the morning. Some sprang 
from their beds and ran into the street ; some lay shiver- 
ing with fear, not daring to rise ; others rushed to the 
windows, and, seeing in the gloom their unclad neighbors 
rushing about the streets, shrieked aloud that the judg- 
ment day was at hand. Others thought that they heard 



550 GREAT DISASTERS. 

Gabriel's horn, and fell on their knees, crying for mercy, 
or fainted away. The boldest feared the crash of totter- 
ing houses ; children ran about crying for their parents; 
dogs howled dismally ; birds flew aloft with frightened 
cries ; cattle bellowed with fear as they dashed about their 
pens. Screaming horses struggled in their stalls. Num- 
bers of fish were killed by the shock. Changes were 
wrought in springs and streams, after the manner of 1727. 

The damage done was not so great as might have been 
expected from the unusual alarm shown. A large num- 
ber of chimneys in Boston were thrown down; clocks 
were stopped ; a new vane was broken from the market 
house, the spindle being snapped at a place where it 
was five inches thick; but we are not told of any serious 
loss of life or property. The shock extended southward, 
and was plainly felt along the east side of the Chesapeake, 
but not on the western shore. The sea wave set in motion 
travelled southward, and it is supposed to have occasioned 
the unusual commotion of the water in the West Indies. 
At St. Martin's the sea suddenly fell five feet below its 
level, and then rose six above. 

The time of the shock was determined exactly by an 
accident. Prof. Winthrop, of Cambridge, had placed a 
long glass tube in his tall clock, as a safe place. This 
tube, thrown against the pendulum, stopped the clock, 
which the day before had been adjusted to meridianal 
noon: and as Prof. Winthrop had compared his watch 
and clock the night before, he was able to show that the 
shocks began at eleven minutes and thirty -five seconds 
after four a. m , November 18, and continued about four 
and a half minutes. 

Eighteen periods of earthquakes are noted in the next 
fifty -five years; and at one of these, in 1791, nearly one 
hundred and fifty shocks were felt. 



EARTHQUAKES IN THE UNITED STATES. 051 




552 GREAT DISASTERS. 

In 1810-11-12, a series of remarkable shocks were felt 
throughout a large portion of the United States, but with 
especial force in the central Mississippi valley. The first 
were noticed near St. Genevieve, but the center of vio- 
lence seemed to lie around New Madrid, Mo. The shocks 
became so sharp and frequent that Dr. Robertson was sent 
out to observe and record them carefully. He kept count 
up to five hundred, and then abandoned that portion of 
the work. 

The phenomena were much like those of the milder 
type of earthquakes everywhere. Around New Madrid 
huge fissures opening in the earth emitted volumes of 
sand and gas, occasionally spouting water, or sending out 
bursts of flame. Some of the fissures were six hundred 
feet long and twenty feet wide. The sand and water was 
sometimes thrown as high as forty or fifty feet. During 
the whole period there were unusual disturbances in other 
regions. On the night of the most violent shocks occurred 
the great earthquake at Caracas, Venezuela, which de- 
stroyed so many thousands. Had the Mississippi region 
been a very thickly settled one, the loss of life would have 
been fearful. Upon the upheaval of a new island, Sa- 
brina, in the Azores, to a height of three hundred and 
twenty feet, and an eruption of the St. Vincent volcano, 
in the Antilles, the disturbance ceased. It is not safe to 
assert positively that there was no connection between 
these phenomena ; but there is little probability that there 
was. They serve rather to show how universal are the 
subterranean forces with which man must deal. The 
year 1811 was also marked by a storm of unusual vio- 
lence, and by the appearance of a brilliant comet. But, 
as noticed before, efforts to establish any especial connec- 
tion between such phenomena have not met with any 
marked success. 



EARTHQUAKES IN THE UNITED STATES. 553 

These earthquakes were so violent in the river itself as 
to almost shatter boats in mid -stream. Trees at some dis- 
tance from the bank were hurled into the water with tre- 
mendous force. Flashes of fire and molten matter were 
thrown to great heights. The explosions seemed like a 
battery of artillery. Sunken logs and snags were thrown 
from the deep bottom of the river to a height of thirty 
feet above the surface. Sulphurous streams dashed from 
a thousand rents, leaving unfathomable fissures. Great 
forest trees lashed their heads together, or were snapped 
off by the shocks. Small islands sank to the bottom of 
the river. Quantities of coal and charred wood were 
thrown up ; some lying a considerable distance from the 
fissures that discharged them. Many boats were lost; 
quite a number of people were buried under falling banks. 
It was undoubtedly the most violent convulsion in the 
history of our country. Reelfoot lake, now a noted fish- 
ing resort, we are told was formed by this earthquake. 

Time would fail us to give an especial notice of the 
many shocks received since the country has been more 
widely settled. With a notice of the recent Charleston 
earthquake this list must be closed. 

This convulsion owes its importance rather to its loca- 
tion than to its violence. It was felt over about one- fourth 
of the entire country, its greatest force being felt along 
the Atlantic coast from New Haven to Savannah. The 
area affected was elliptical, and the shock was but little less 
severe at Atlanta, Georgia, in East Tennessee, and many 
North and South Carolina regions, than in Charleston 
itself. At was felt at Charleston at 9:51, August 31, 1886, 
and reached Toronto, Canada, in four minutes. It did 
not travel so readily westward as northward. 

It is of course impossible to estimate exactly the dam- 
age done. A considerable number of important cities 



554 



GREAT DISASTERS. 



suffered more or less ; but the majority were forgotten in 
the unusual severity at Charleston. The city appeared 
as though it had been through a siege, or as if a gigan- 
tic charge of dynamite had been exploded beneath it. In 




all directions might be seen heaps of ruins, houses totter- 
ing, cracked, twisted — in all stages of destruction. Ever 
and anon a fresh shock brought down some crumbling 
edifice with a sullen roar, and a cloud of stifling dust 



EARTHQUAKES IN THE UNITED STATES. 655 

veiled it from view. The night resounded with the 
screams of terrified fugitives, the tread of hurrying feet, 
and the groans and cries of the wounded. The parks 
swarmed with those in search of a place of safety. Hun- 
dreds were bruised or maimed by falling stones and 
timbers ; not a few were killed outright ; others, crushed 
in the wrecks, died a lingering death. 

Appeals for aid were promptly responded to by all 
portions of the country. Even those localities which had 
themselves suffered severely, came to the aid of the city 
that had been more sorely stricken. 

The greatest injury to life was indirect. Only forty- 
seven people, it is said, were killed outright. But few 
houses were left safe; and for a considerable time young 
and old, rich and poor, the feeble and the strong, were 
out of doors in tents, booths, or such rude shelters as 
they could hastily erect. The alarm was perpetuated by 
occasional recurrence of the shocks during several days. 
The continued exposure and lack of necessaries created a 
vast deal of sickness; and the deaths thus indirectly occa- 
sioned far exceeded those killed outright. 

The damage to buildings in Charleston is estimated at 
$5,000,000. But in comparison with the whole number 
injured, comparatively few of the houses were shaken 
completely down. Hundreds were shaken and shattered 
to the point of falling, and had to be pulled down as un- 
safe. The shock was just short of a point where it would 
have made terrible havoc. If violent enough to over- 
throw the many houses it merely shattered, its victims 
would have been numbered by thousands, instead of tens. 
We may be thankful, with Lord North, that things were 
no worse. 

The nature of the shocks varied. In some parts of 
South Carolina chimneys and brick walls remained up- 



556 GREAT DISASTERS, 

right, but crushed to atoms at the base, as if shattered by 
a powerful upward concussion ; in other locations, evi- 
dences of a twisting motion were present ; houses were 
turned partially around, and left almost unharmed. Again, 
as in most cases in Charleston, the chief movement ap- 
peared to be a horizontal one — the upper portions of walls 
and buildings being thrown down, while the lower suffered 
little harm. More of these singular effects will be noticed 
in connection with other shocks. Crevices and fissures 
were opened ; railroad rails bent in a snake-like form ; 
mud, sand, and small stones were thrown out. There was 
no tidal wave, and artesian wells four hundred feet deep 
were not disturbed. There was no barometric variation, 
though the air is said to have suddenly become oppress- 
ively hot at the moment of the shock. Some Pennsylva- 
nia gas wells diminished, and a geyser in the Yellowstone 
Park, four years quiet, burst suddenly into action. These 
we must deem mere coincidences. 

As a whole, this has been the most destructive single 
earthquake in our history, while far inferior in real vio- 
lence to the convulsions last noticed. For frequency of 
shocks, and total damage in consequence, the Pacific 
States far exceed all the rest of the country. Their posi- 
tion with active volcanic regions in Oregon and Washing- 
ton and Lower California, renders them peculiarly liable 
to such disturbances. Within the years 1872-1885, inclu- 
sive, there were registered seventy -five earthquakes in 
New England, sixty-six in the Atlantic States, seventy- 
five in the Mississippi Valley, and two hundred and 
thirty -seven in the Pacific States. 

These facts ought to be conclusive evidence against the 
belief that, because storms and earthquakes are sometimes' 
simultaneous, the one is in any way responsible for the 
other. These figures show the fewest shocks in the region 



! 



EARTHQUAKES IN THE UNITED STATES. 557 




558 GREAT DISASTERS. 

most frequented by tornadoes; while the section never 
visited by the latter shows more shocks than all the rest 
combined. Add to these the previous shocks recorded in 
our history — 231 — and it is evident that we have our full 
share of such convulsions. 

In respect to earthquakes, our British cousins have 
been even more fortunate than ourselves. A cursory 
glance at British geology shows that at a remote age in 
the past, volcanic action was frequent and violent; but 
the whole region has long buried or healed the wounds 
inflicted upon the face of nature by the petulant giants 
of fire. Now and then there is a premonitory tremor ; 
but the warning seems not to be for the grandchildren of 
the Druids; and the latter have been lulled to a sense of 
almost absolute security. 

Yet at some periods of the past they have been seriously 
disturbed, if we may credit the old chroniclers ; but their 
records are so brief, and at times so conflicting, that it is 
not always easy to determine the extent of the disaster. 
And it must be remembered that in the dark and middle 
ages the mass of the people knew absolutely nothing of 
affairs not in their own immediate neighborhood. 

Perhaps the most striking feature of British earthquakes 
is the fact that, like the shocks in the Vesuvian neighbor- 
hood, the area they disturb is very small ; it may be, 
however, that incompleteness of reports is responsible for 
this apparent peculiarity. Up to the last century but one 
general shock is recorded ; this being the first of which 
there is definite mention, occurring in 974 A. D. Five 
others are recorded in the next century, all local. 

Perhaps the most violent of the earlier earthquakes was 
the one which in 1110 shook the region between Shrews- 
bury and Nottingham, tumbling down many houses and 
injuring many people. At Nottingham the bed of the 



EARTHQUAKES IN ENGLAND. 559 

river Trent was laid dry and remained so some hours. 
Probably a large fissure opened temporarily in the channel, 
allowing the water to escape into subterranean cavities. 
Three other earthquakes occurred in the Lincolnshire fens 
in the next thirty-two years, doing considerable damage. 

In 1158 mention is made of a most extraordinary 
earthquake which shook London and vicinity, destroying 
much property, injuring several people, and causing the 
Thames to become so low as to be passed on foot. Seven 
years later there was a general tremor observed through- 
out all England. 

John of Brompton relates a remarkable circumstance 
in connection with an earthquake in 1179. The ground 
belonging to the bishop of Durham, at Oxenhall near 
Darlington, was raised suddenly to a level with the adja- 
cent hills, remaining so from 9 a. m. till sunset, when it 
fell again, leaving a deep cavity in place of a hill. Three 
other earthquakes occurred ere the close of the century ; 
the last one, in Somersetshire in 1199, being violent 
enough to throw men off their feet. 

Forty-seven years passed without any further experi- 
ence of the sort, when a series of severe shocks, especially 
violent in Kent, overthrew a number of churches and 
other buildings of the more pretentious sort; and the 
same thing happened next year, affecting especially Lon- 
don and the Thames Valley. Again, in the year after, 
Bath and Wells suffered considerably ; and two years 
later St. Albans was shaken. 

Of other earthquakes in the next century no especial 
mention need be made, save of one of unusual violence in 
1385. A revolution in Scotland followed, and the super- 
stitious populace, looking backward, concluded that the 
earthquake had been meant as a warning which they had 
not been able to interpret. A second shock which fol- 



560 



GREAT DISASTERS. 




EAKTHQUAKES IN ENGLAND. 561 

lowed the revolution was supposed to express the Divine 
displeasure at their short-sightedness. 

But one shock, though a very general one, is recorded 
during the next one hundred and sixty-six years. Then 
in 1551 a slight tremor upset the people's furniture and 
dinner pots in a portion of Surrey. Twenty years after- 
ward a severe shock in Herefordshire was accompanied by 
a landslide. A large portion of a hill slowly descended 
during two days, turning a half circle as it came, as 
though on a pivot. 

In 1574 a sharp vibration shook northern and western 
England at the hour for vespers. Suppliants in Norton 
Chapel were thrown prostrate and fled in terror, believing 
the dead were rising through the floor. Part of Ruthin 
Castle was thrown down. 

In 1580, April 6, nearly all England was alarmed by a 
violent shock. The great bell at Westminster rang the 
alarm; others joined in. Students of the Temple rushed 
into the streets; stones fell from St. Paul's; showers of 
chimneys in the streets maimed several persons; a panic 
ensued at Christ Church, where two people were killed by 
falling stones, and several were maimed in the wild rush 
to escape from the building. Parts of the fortifications at 
Dover were overthrown ; also several churches and castles 
were damaged. May 1 of the same year the shocks were 
again felt in Kent, during the night. This is one of the 
most notable of British earthquakes ; it passed eastward 
through Belgium to Cologne. 

But it is needless to pursue the record further. Only 
two unusual features are presented among the many earth- 
quakes following : one in 1731 was confined to an area six 
miles by five; and one in 1734 exhibited a peculiar rotary 
motion, shaking persons in bed around at right angles to 
their former positions. 

36 



562 GREAT DISASTERS. 

Summing up the record, we find that in the 10th cen- 
tury one earthquake is recorded in England ; during the 
11th, ten; during the 12th, twelve; during the 13th, 
thirteen ; during the 14th, four ; during the 15th, one ; 
six in the 16th ; twenty in the 17th, and eighty-four in 
the eighteenth. The present has also had a fair quota. 
But if we consider the damage to property, or the fatal- 
ity, we must conclude that no country in the world is so 
favored in this matter of earthquakes as Great Britain, un- 
less it may be Germany. 

Finally, all the disasters of this sort, in both England 
and the United States, so far as all historic records go, 
do not equal a single one of the many terrible convul- 
sions recorded in the history of other nations. From the 
earliest times to the present, we find a constant succession 
of appalling disasters, many of which are almost beyond 
the power of comprehension. The most cursory glance at 
these horrors of the past should render every Anglo-Saxon 
peculiarly grateful that his lot is not cast in a land so 
cursed with terrors, and more ready to sympathize with 
the stranger in his woe. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

EARTHQUAKES IN TROPICAL AMERICA. 

" Hark ! louder on the blast come hollow shrieks 
Of dissolution ; in the fitful scowl 
Of night, near and more near, angels of death 
Incessant flap their deadly wings, and roar 
Through all the fevered air: the mountains rock 
And thousand meteors flame about their beads ; 
The thunder long and loud gives out his voice, 
Responsive to the ocean's troubled growl, 
While bellowing chasms rend th' eternal hills. 
Earth trembles at the mighty march of death." 

'T^HE reader will be assured, from the facts given con- 
-*- cerning volcanic eruptions, and the earthquakes 
of Asia Minor mentioned in the former chapter, that great 
earthquakes are as numerous in Asiatic districts as else- 
where; but beyond the bare fact, little is known of most 
of these. India has preserved no written history : and 
China and Japan have been till recently almost inaccessi- 
ble to Europeans. So while the disturbances there are 
equal in importance to those of other lands, it is but lately 
that any definite information has been accessible ; and 
our chief knowledge has come from personal narratives of 
white settlers and visitors to the islands of the western 
Pacific. In Japan, there is, to say nothing of numerous 
volcanoes, strong circumstantial evidence of the frequency 
of earthquakes in days past. Almost all dwellings are 
constructed of bamboo and lightest woods, one story high, 
with screens of paper as partitions : houses of stone are 
feared, the people preferring to take their chances on a 
great fire than on an earthquake. The same fact is notice- 

563 



564 



GREAT DISASTERS. 




EARTHQUAKE IN CHINA- 



EARTHQUAKES IN TROPICAL AMERICA. 565 

able in the Philippines, Moluccas, and adjacent groups. 
Almost the only stone buildings are those of Spanish and 
Dutch settlers. China has apparently suffered less ; but 
we learn ithat in 1556 two entire provinces were laid 
waste. The extent of the loss of life can not be estimated. 
The earth vomited ashes and flames, and ten great sea 
waves occurred in twenty-four hours. 

Since European occupation of the East Indies, the con- 
vulsions have been frequent and alarming. The city of 
Manila was completely destroyed, with thousands of peo- 
ple, in 1645. Not one stone remained on another. Se- 
vere shocks occurred there again in 1699, 1796, 1825, 
1852, and 1863. The last named wrecked the cathedral 
while filled with worshipers. The loss of property was 
from $8,000,000 to $10,000,000, or twice that of our 
Charleston earthquake. Four hundred people were killed. 
The shock lasted about half a minute, but opened many 
fissures, emitted volumes of gas and spoilt the river water. 
Again, in 1880, after some vague or irregular tremblings, 
there were several violent shocks. There was first expe- 
rienced a peculiar sense of nausea and faintness, with a 
feeling of powerlessness or inability to flee. Horses 
stopped trembling in the streets, " standing with ears 
erect, with staring eyes, and stiffly extended legs, as 
though conscious of extraordinary peril." The natives, 
heedless of appeals for help, wildly sought their own 
safety, or knelt devoutly invoking the saints. Clouds of 
dust filled the air, and heaps of ruin blocked the streets. 
The terrible hush that prevailed was broken only by an 
occasional cry for aid, or the crash of a ruined home. Por- 
tions of ground between great crevices were raised five or 
six feet ; other parts fell as much. But the confusion rap- 
idly subsided, and occupations of all sorts were resumed. 
One newspaper, true to the traditional enterprise of the 



666 GREAT DISASTERS. 

fraternity, dragged its paraphernalia from its ruined build- 
ing, and went to work in the middle of the street. An 
American publisher could hardly beat that. 

But a region whose earthquakes have attracted greater 
attention, and have been more carefully noticed by scien- 
tific men than those of the eastern archipelago, is to be 
found along the western slope of the Andes, extending 
thence into Central America and Northern Venezuela and 
the West Indies. 

Ever since the Spanish conquest, earthquakes have been 
numerous and violent in this whole region ; and judging 
from the character of the native dwellings, the aborigines 
were for centuries accustomed to such movements. But it 
remained for Humboldt, in the last century, to give us a 
more careful description of some of the greater of these 
disasters. 

Of the preceding disturbances, one of the most notable 
occurred in 1698, when the. crater of the volcano Cargui- 
razo fell in with a great crash during a shock of earth- 
quake, and an area of twenty square miles was covered 
with mud containing numerous dead fish. A few years 
later, a similar occurrence north of Quito produced an epi- 
demic of pernicious fevers. 

But of the many great convulsions, that of Riobamba, 
in 1794, must rank as exceeding all within the range of 
authentic history, unless we except the one which de- 
stroyed Antioch in the year 526. The area disturbed was 
the great volcanic plain on which Quito stands. 

No subterranean noise announced or accompanied the 
shock. Adjacent volcanoes were quiet; but the volcano 
of Pasto, sixty miles to the northward, had for three 
months been violently smoking; and at the moment the 
shock sixty miles away began, it suddenly stopped, nor 
did it again begin. The volcano of Cayambe, near Quito, 



EARTHQUAKES IN TROPICAL AMERICA. 56T 

seemed surrounded by meteorites. The pious people, 
alarmed at this manifestation of the divine wrath, formed 
a religious procession which walked through the principal' 
streets. The result justified their belief in the potency 
of their prayers ; for Quito remained unharmed. A great 
roar, since known as el gran ruido, was heard under the- 
town some twenty minutes after the disaster; but at the 
scene of the latter it was not heard at all. 

In the immediate vicinity of Riobamba, the destruction' 
was fearful. The entire plain seemed rent into small in- 
dependent fragments, which rose or sank at will. Hum- 
boldt tells that an eye-witness might have seen "fissures 
which alternately opened and closed, so that persons par- 
tially engulfed were saved by extending their arms, that 
they might not be swallowed up ; portions of long trains 
of muleteers and laden mules disappearing in suddenly 
opening cross fissures, whilst other portions, by a hasty 
retreat, escaped the danger ; vertical oscillations, by the 
non-simultaneous rising and sinking of adjoining por- 
tions of ground, so that persons standing in the choir of 
a church, sixteen feet above the pavement of the street, 
found themselves lowered to the level of the pavement 
without being thrown down ; the sinking down of massive 
houses, with such an absence of disruption or dislocation 
that the inhabitants could open the doors of the interior, 
pass uninjured from room to room, light candles and de- 
bate with each other their chance of escape, during two 
days which elapsed before they were dug out; lastly, the 
entire disappearance of great masses of stones and build- 
ing materials. The old town had possessed churches, 
convents, and houses of several stories ; but in the places 
where they stood, we found, on tracing out among the 
ruins the former plan of the city, only stone heaps of 
from eight to twelve feet in height." 



568 



GREAT DISASTERS. 



Of some of the villages in the adjacent plain not a trace 
was left. They sunk bodily, and the earth closed over 
them. Of the others, only heaps of ruins were left. 

Nor was this all. The great volcano of Tunguragua, 
at the southern extremity of the plateau, was rent asunder 
by the shock, or, according to others, had an eruption 
from the side. Immense torrents of thick, dark, sandy 
mud, mingled with pebbles, poured out and flooded adja- 
cent portions of the plain, smothered scores still entan- 




APTEB THE SHOCK. 



gled in the ruins of their dwellings, filling numerous 
ravines and valleys, one of which was one thousand feet 
wide and seven hundred feet deep. 

The total loss of life was terrible. One authority places 
the destruction at two hundred thousand. Forty thousand 
Indians were suffocated by the torrent of mud alone. It 
is the most destructive earthquake in modern history. 

The town of Cumana has been visited almost as fre- 



EARTHQUAKES IN TROPICAL AMERICA. 569 

quently as the far-famed Antioch. In 1530, we are told, 
the sea rose four fathoms, the earth was rent, a fort laid in 
ruins, the town wrecked, and dark, noisome liquids ejected 
from fissures. In 1766, a long drought, fifteen months in 
duration, had turned the thoughts of the people once more 
upon their manifold transgressions, and they were pre- 
pared for further chastisement. This came upon them. 
October 21 an earthquake blotted the town out of exist- 
ence in less than a minute. The earth vomited sulphur- 
ous waters. The shocks were continued during fourteen 
months. The good people instituted an annual fast and 
procession in commemoration of the event. 

Again, in 1794, Cumana was nearly prostrated. De- 
cember 14, 1797, there was a tremendous upward shock, 
with a noise like a mine explosion. Four-fifths of the 
town was laid in ruins. The atmosphere seemed con- 
verted to water, so great were the torrents of rain. The 
Indians held a religious festival and dance, believing the 
destruction and regeneration of the world was at hand. 

The first days of November, 1799, were noted for the 
peculiar redness of the sky and the oppressiveness of the 
atmosphere, though the weather was not especially warm. 
At nightfall the sea breeze failed to begin, and the dusty 
earth began to crack in all directions. The people were 
sure some evil boded. November 4, as a heavy storm 
came up, there was a sharp gust of wind, which the na- 
tives say always precedes an earthquake ; and a few min- 
utes later came the shock ; two others followed during the 
evening ; but though all the tokens of a great shock, ac- 
cording to native ideas, were present in such force that the 
people abandoned their homes and slept in the parks and 
fields, the great quake never came. The redness of the 
sky continued, and a few nights later occurred a brilliant 
shower of meteors. Despite these signs and wonders, 



570 GKEAT DISASTERS. 

Mother Earth refused to tremble. Humboldt concluded 
native prognostications were unreliable. 

During the past eighty years destructive earthquakes 
have been more frequent in South America than in any 
other region of the earth. First on the list is the great 
disaster at Caracas. 

This town lies six miles from the seaport of La Guayra, 
in a valley " where reigns eternal spring " Shut in by 
lofty mountains, its aspect is somewhat gloomy. The cold 
mountain air keeps the evening veiled with clouds. But 
as a whole, the situation is so fine that the people would 
hardly exchange it for a site less liable to earthquakes. 

In December, 1811, when the disturbances were so great 
in the valleys of the Mississippi, Ohio and Arkansas, there 
was a sharp shock, which did no especial damage. At this 
time there was a severe drought, which continued during 
the succeeding months ; but no word of the disturbances 
to the North, or in St. Vincent, reaching the people, they 
were not especially alarmed. So the days passed till Holy 
Week came, and hundreds were in the great churches. 

At a few minutes past four there was a sudden shock 
which set church-bells to ringing. Then came a second, 
which made the ground seem as'though it were boiling. 
This ceased, and the people supposed the danger was past, 
when there came the fearful subterranean roar but too well 
known in tropi2al countries, followed by series of alter- 
nating shocks at right angles to each other, and at once 
the beautiful city, with its palaces and homes and works 
of art was a shapeless ruin, with twelve thousand corpses 
lying amid the wreck. Four thousand people were slain 
in the churches alone. The great church of Alta Gracia, 
one hundred and fifty feet in height, whose nave was 
supported by pillars fifteen feet in diameter, was turned 
into a heap of rubbish but five or six feet high. Nearly 



EARTHQUAKES IN TROPICAL AMERICA. 



671 



all had sunk in the earth. Scarce a vestige of pillar or 
column could be found. A regiment of infantry, mus- 
tered in San Carlos barracks, was engulfed, but few es- 
caping. Nine-tenths of the town was annihilated. 

Night came. The cloud of dust, that like a mist had 
risen from the wreck, had settled to the ground. The full 
moon shone as calmly on the scene as in the past ; and 
by the spectral light were seen strange figures hurrying 
to and fro. Here passed a mother with an infant's corpse ; 




SCENE AT CARACAS. 



while there a father groped amid the wreck, and called by 
turns the names of wife and child. No tools were left in 
reach in all the town; bare-handed creatures grappled 
with the stony heaps, and groaned in answer to the 
moans beneath. The aqueducts were shattered and the 
springs were stopped ; the Guayra River was the sole sup- 
ply. Scarce vessels could be found to fetch it in. Here 
hurrying feet bore wounded creatures to the stream ; but 
lint and bandages were all beneath the wreck. Two 



572 GREAT DISASTERS. 

thousand injured people lay upon the turf, with little of 
the needed help ; but all their friends could do was done. 
Not even food enough could be procured at first. 

Then anguish-stricken souls repented of their sins, and 
marched in procession that the wrath of God might be 
changed to mercy. Some driven to the verge of madness 
loudly confessed their sins in the open streets. Some 
promised to restore ill-gotten gains ; often the peculation 
was known only to themselves. Marriages were solem- 
nized between many who had hitherto not considered a 
ceremony necessary. Children were formally recognized 
by parents who had before repudiated them ; long stand- 
ing fueds and enmities were dropped. 

Caracas was not the only place injured. La Guayra, 
Mayquetia, Antimano, Baruta, La Vega, San Felipe, and 
Merida were totally destroyed. Five thousand deaths 
occurred at San Felipe and La Guayra alone. It was im- 
possible to give burial. Vast funeral pyres were made 
and corpse after corpse consigned to the flames. The total 
number of deaths from the earthquake, including those 
who perished from want and sickness induced by the ex- 
posure, was probably forty thousand ; some have estimated 
fifty thousand. The shocks were felt as far westward as 
Bogota. 

It does not appear that any especial commotion was felt 
in Central America, though shocks in the latter regions 
are nearly always felt in Venezuela or Columbia. Every 
portion of Central America has been repeatedly shaken. 
The town of Guatemala has been four times destroyed, 
the people each time selecting a new site and adhering to 
the old name. The people of San Salvador, on the other 
hand, have obstinately clung to their site, though visited 
by violent earthquakes in 1575, 1593, 1625, 1656, 1798, 
and 1839; and minor shocks are of such constant recur- 



EARTHQUAKES IN TROPICAL AMERICA. 



573 




Ktrusrs of san salvadob 



574 GREAT DISASTERS. 

rence that the locality is nicknamed " the hammock." 
But the shock of 1889 was so severe that they seriously 
meditated leaving; but they finally settled in the old 
place, when four-fifths of their town had just been 
destroyed. 

But in Holy Week, in 1854, as Mr. Squier tells us, 
unusual rumblings were heard on the morning of Holy 
Thursday. The inhabitants, somewhat alarmed, still went 
about their customary avocations. The remainder of the 
week passed without further cause for fear. At half past 
nine o'clock on Sunday night a severe shock so alarmed 
many people that they prepared to camp out for the night. 
At ten minutes to eleven there came without any warning 
a fearful quaking, which levelled the city to the earth in 
ten seconds ; clouds of dust filled the streets ; wells and 
fountains were choked ; not a drop of water could be ob- 
tained. Not a house was left inhabitable; scarce one 
preserved the semblance of being erect; yet the town was 
composed chiefly of low, one-story structures. The air 
was filled with fumes of sulphur ; the neighboring volcano 
threatened an eruption ; and in addition to the usual hor- 
rors of an earthquake, other features were added. 

The ex-president of the republic was so badly hurt as 
to be almost incapacitated for duty. Indians roamed pil- 
laging the wreck, dropping on their knees and praying 
as fresh shocks terrified them; then returning to the 
plunder; for they were good Christians. Justice, police, 
clergy — all were gone. The venerable bishop, Soldana, 
when dragged from the ruin, bade the people flee in all 
haste, for " God had given the city over to the Evil One 
as a punishment for its sins ; and in spite of the name it 
bore ' (Holy Savior) ' it would be cast into the bottomless 
pit." The good bishop promptly headed the retreat of 
the clergy from the forces of Satan, evidentlj under the 



EARTHQUAKES IN TROPICAL AMERICA. 1)40 

impression that if the people could only leave the accursed 
locality, the devil would not be so scrupulously exact in 
tormenting them before the time. The people flocked af- 
ter the clergy in large numbers, believing they would be 
safest in the neighborhood of the holy men. It is well 
known that even the devil respects the cloth. 

The republic had been rent by civil war for years; and 
in this critical juncture, it seemed that it was about to be 




PEOPLE OF SAN SALVADOR FRIGHTENED. 

renewed. But a man of strong will and energy and cool- 
ness stepped forward — Duenas, ex-monk, lawyer, deputy, 
and president — from his farm, like Cincinnatus. Col- 



lecting a few friends 



and digging some arms from the 



wreck of the barracks, he inspirited the new president, 
and martial law was proclaimed. The shooting of a few 
Indian robbers imparted to the remainder a respect for 
law equalled only by their practical Christianity, and the 



576 GREAT DISASTERS. 

work of rescue began. Large numbers of the populace 
permanently forsook the site. 

Two years later there was a great earthquake in Hon- 
duras; but the area of disturbance was not so densely 
peopled, and the damage done was proportionately less. 
Disasters of this sort cause most Central Americans to 
emigrate. "Then women and children form themselves 
into groups and travel through the country. They set 
the drama in which they have taken part to music, and 
they go through the country singing the rude verses which 
they have run together in the different villages, and then 
send the hat around. After they have visited the whole 
of their own country, they cross the frontier into the 
neighboring State, where they are also assured of doing 
pretty well." 

During three centuries of Spanish occupation of South 
America, while scores of convulsions had visited the Pa- 
cific seaboard, none had shaken the eastern slope of the 
Cordilleras, or the great plains beyond ; and there had re- 
sulted a settled belief that the entire region was, so to 
speak, earthquake-proof. But the illusion was rudely dis- 
pelled. 

In the extreme west of the Argentine Republic, on the 
high road from Valparaiso to Buenos Ayres, lies the town 
of Mendoza, in full view of Tupungato and the mighty 
Aconcagua. Never having, in all their history, experi- 
enced any harm from these mountains, the people antici- 
pated none. 

" Mendoza had about 20,000 inhabitants and five hun- 
dred houses, nearly all of them very handsome. It also 
contained two very large hospitals, several schools, a 
splendid cathedral, and several churches. Its trade was 
prosperous, and more than a hundred large shops testified 
to the extent of its commerce. There was no such library 



EARTHQUAKES IN TROPICA], AMERICA. 



577 



in the whole of the Argentine Republic. Its theatre was 
most sumptuous, and the Alameda, its public promenade, 
was regarded as the finest in South America. 

" One evening, an immense red and blue meteor slowly 
traversed the sky from East to West, and the volcano of 
Aconcagua broke into an eruption upon the night follow- 
ing — 20th March, 1861 — without any premonitory sound 
or sign : the earth quaked violently, and in less than a 
minute the town of Mendoza had disappeared. It was 




SHOCK AT LAKE IN HONDURAS. 



transformed into a vast field of ruins, the highest of which 
were not more than three feet from the ground. Never 
within the memory of man has a town been so taken by 
surprise ; for in this case the earthquake was not preceded 
by the underground mutterings which, even if only a few 
seconds in advance of the shock, give some sort of warn- 
ing. Upon that night, and in less than four seconds, fif- 
teen thousand people were buried in the ruins. Horrible 
noises, cries of terror, the heartrending howls of men and 

37 



578 GREAT DISASTERS. # 

animals filled the air, and a thick cloud of dust darkened 
the sky." 

Mendoza was not the only place injured. At San Juan, 
one hundred miles northward, three thousand people were 
killed. Three hundred and fifty miles further away, Cor- 
dova lost a number of houses, and a slight shock was felt 
at Buenos Ayres. The wreck presented the scenes com- 
mon in such cases ; and, as in several similar disasters, 
bands of brigands pounced upon the town to pillage the 
ruins. 

Of the many touching incidents, we must give place to 
two : 

That the town was absolutely unwarned is hardly cor- 
rect. A French geologist, M. Bravard, sent on a scientific 
mission by the Russian government, had found the volca- 
noes near by violently roaring, yet emitting no smoke or 
fire ; and, nearing the valley of Mendoza, he found the soil 
in a constant tremor. Alarmed at these manifestations, he 
expressed his belief that if the pressure were not speedily 
relieved by eruption, a severe earthquake might follow. 
His assertion caused serious apprehension, for his high at- 
tainments gave his opinions great weight with the people. 
For nearly a week the possibility of a catastrophe was se- 
riously discussed. One evening he stood at the door of 
M. Matussiere, wishing his friends good-night. Again 
he alluded to the earthquake — the shock came, and he was 
caught by the fall of the house. 

Matussiere himself was on his way home from Val- 
paraiso. When fifteen miles from Mendoza, in the moun- 
tains, a tremendous roaring was heard, but he felt no 
shock. The moon shone as calmly and clearly as ever, 
and no disturbance followed.' Oppressed, however, by 
terrible fear, he hastened to Mendoza. He could not even 
guess where was the wreck of his own home. After a 



EARTHQUAKES IN TROPICAL AMERICA. 579 




WRECK AT MENDOZA. 



580 GREAT DISASTERS. 

long, despairing search, he saw his great house dog come 
bounding toward him. The dog led him to the wreck ; 
and, after wearisome toil, the merchant found his wife and 
one child alive. The rest of the family, and the French 
geologist, were dead. 

Another episode is related by M. Charton : There was 
at Mendoza a rich, French hotel keeper, M. Tesser. After 
the shock, " one of his intimate friends wandered among 
the ruins. His eyes were dry : he could shed tears no 
longer. He stopped on the site of the hotel, trying in 
vain to recall the old arrangements. He was retiring — 
his heart filled with sighs, thinking of the honest man 
and the family he had loved so well — when he perceived, 
through the shapeless mass of girders and calcined stones, 
M. Tesser's dog, which moaned ; he approached it. The 
poor animal, the two hind legs and part of the body of 
which were crushed, forced itself, in spite of his sufferings 
and weakness, to scratch with his front paws, and uttered, 
from time to time, a plaintive howl. As it saw its master's 
friend come near, it exerted itself and howled louder. The 
friend understood that Tesser must be beneath this rub- 
bish, and hoped he was not dead. He ran to fetch some 
persons, and, with their help, after much labor, he indeed 
discovered the body of poor Tesser ; his left arm and leg, 
lying under the beams, were broken, his mouth and eyes 
full of earth, but he still breathed. Before trying to dis- 
engage his limbs, they washed his face, which seemed to 
relieve him ; without saying a word, he instinctively 
stretched his right arm toward his dog, who drew himself 
to him, and died a few moments afterwards. 

"Tesser scarcely was in a state to pronounce any 
words, before he asked where his family was. All had 
perished in the great disaster. Hearing this answer, he 
closed his eyes with despair ; then, making a fresh effort, 



EARTHQUAKES IN TROPICAL AMERICA. 581 

he pronounced the name of his little girl, and showed 
with his finger a separate place where he had put her to 
bed. Some of the people, in compassion for his grief, al- 
though without hope, made further search ; others occu- 
pied themselves in dressing his broken limbs. A few 
minutes later, those rendering him this service saw him 
suddenly raise himself up — he gave a cry — they brought 
him his daughter, still living. A beam had fallen across 
the bed of the child and had protected it ; but she was 
seriously wounded in the head ; she had also her mouth 
and eyes filled with dirt, and was exhausted with hunger." 
For two months the pair lay under a tent against a tree, 
more dead than alive. They only remained to each other 
of the once rich and happy family. But in this respect, 
they were no worse off than hundreds of others. m 

The people abandoned the site, unable to remain in 
view of so many monuments of former happiness. 
Strangers came in and a new Mendoza rose, but not so 
lovely as the former one. This town was also severely 
shaken in 1885. 

With a notice of one other earthquake, which demands 
attention because of unusual results, this chapter must 
close. 

This shock occurred August 13, 1868, in Peru. The 
center of the convulsion was at Arequipa, at the foot of 
the lofty volcanic mountain of Misti, which has not 
shown signs of activity since the great outburst of 1542. 
So far as their volcanic neighbor was concerned, the forty- 
four thousand people of Arequipa had apparently no 
reason for apprehension. 

At five minutes past five, there came a light shock like 
the jar of a distant explosion. Half a minute later began 
the subterranean rumbling, with a rapidly increasing 
vibration, which made the people run for their lives into 



582 GREAT DISASTERS. 

the streets. Then " the swaying motion changed into fierce, 
vertical upheaval. The subterranean roaring increased in 
a terrifying manner ; then were heard the heart-piercing 
shrieks of the wretched people, the bursting of walls, the 
crashing fall of houses and churches, while over all rolled 
thick clouds of a yellowish-black dust, which, had they 
been poured forth many minutes longer, would have suf- 
focated thousands." 

Tacna and Arica suffered little less. But the greatest 
damage in the coast region was from the sea wave. A 
few minutes after the shock, the sea rolled back, falling 
twenty-five feet ; then a huge, black wall of water leaped 
up, fifty feet in height, and rushed for the shore. The 
American vice-consul at Arica, well versed in the phe- 
nomena of earthquakes, left his house at the first shock, 
and ran with his family to the hills to avoid any probable 
sea wave. The monster billow struck the mole to pieces, 
and swept clean the lower part of the town. Six vessels 
were lost in the bay, or tossed over rocks and houses ; two, 
a Peruvian corvette and a United States war-ship, were 
carried inland and left high and dry, half a mile north of 
Arica, without a broken spar or tarnished flag. Similar 
feats were recorded at Iquique. Twelve hundred miles of 
sea-coast were more or less affected. Sixty million dollars 
worth of property were destroyed, and twenty thousand 
people killed. 

The great sea wave was especially remarkable. Re- 
coiling from the Peruvian coast, in three hours its south- 
ern expansion was observed at Coquimbo, eight hundred 
miles south. An hour later it was at Constitucion, four 
hundred and fifty miles further. Northward, the wave 
rushed, sixty feet high, into the harbor of San Pedro, Cal- 
ifornia, five thousand miles from the shock. 

To the westward, the Sandwich Islands were reached 



EARTHQUAKES IN TROPICAL AMERICA. 



583 



that night, and irregular waves broke upon the coast for 
three days. Before midnight it broke upon the Marque- 
sas and the Paumotu archipelago. At half-past three in 
the morning it was at New Zealand. By daylight it was 




THE GREAT SKA WAVE REACHES f 'Mil, I 



surging along the coasts of Australia, and by mid-day it 
was tossing even on the southwest coast of Australia. The 
same day, it was heaving on the shores of Japan. 

This wave is doubtless surpassed only by the great wave 



584 GREAT DISASTERS. 

set in motion by the convulsion of Krakatoa, mentioned 
in the chapter on volcanoes. It travelled to a distance of 
10,500 miles from its starting point, at a speed of from 
400 to 500 miles an hour, according to the direction. Yet 
it has had several strong rivals. Had the great wave of 
1867, at the time of the earthquake at St. Thomas, been 
raised in the open sea, instead of in the comparatively 
shut in Caribbean, it might have travelled to an equal 
distance. The sea wave which followed the earthquake at 
Simoda, Japan, in 1854, completely wiped out that town, 
leaving only fragments of a temple-wall, and some 
wrecked vessels, two miles inland. Most of the people 
perished. Recoiling from the coast, the wave rolled in 
upon the shores of California, travelling 5,000 miles in 
twelve hours. 

The terrible earthquake that ravaged Jamaica in 1692, 
produced a wave that swept thirty-three feet of water over 
the highest house in Port Royal, destroying 3,000 persons 
An English frigate, the Swan, was deposited on the top 
of a large building, breaking in the roof. The waves of 
the Lisbon and Calabrian earthquakes have been noticed 
elsewhere. 

This same district in Peru has suffered similarly sev- 
eral times. Callao, with the ground on which it was 
built, was swept away in 1746. Only fifteen of its people 
ever reached Lima, six miles inland. When the town was 
rebuilt, a second disaster of this sort nearly destroyed it. 
Iquique and Arequipa, in Peru, were again destroyed May 
9, 1877 ; and a wave seventy feet high swept the coast, 
and recoiling reached Japan next day, travelling two hun- 
dred and eighteen yards per second. 

The cases given illustrate well the stupendous power 
and destructiveness of vibrations in the earth's surface. 
But few have been given, nor have all the greatest been 



EARTHQUAKES IN TROPICAL AMERICA. 585 

detailed. Mention only must suffice for the one which 
shook Naples and vicinity, December 5, 1456, destroying 
forty thousand people. Another in Persia, June 7, 1755, 
destroyed Kaschan, with forty thousand people; one at 
Cairo, Egypt, the preceding year, killed twenty thousand. 
Another in the Abruzzi, Italy, November 3, 1706, killed 
killed fifteen thousand persons; one at Palermo, Sicily, 
September 13, 1726, killed six thousand ; one hundred 
thousand perished in the Pekin earthquake of November 
30, 1731 ; two thousand were destroyed by an earthquake 
in the Kutch district, India, in 1819. Constantinople 
was overturned in the year 1800 ; six thousand people 
perished in an earthquake in Murcia, Spain, in 1829 ; 
fifteen hundred were killed by Italian earthquakes in 
1835-36; Southern Syria suffered greatly in 1836; Hayti 
was shaken, and four thousand people perished, in 1842 ; 
one hundred thousand houses and thirty thousand people 
destroyed by an earthquake in Japan, 1854 ; Montenerro, 
Calabria, and ten thousand people in 1857 ; five thousand 
people in Ecuador, 1859 ; Northwestern Khorassan, Per- 
sia, with thirty thousand people, in 1871 ; Antioch again 
nearly destroyed in 1872 ; three thousand people killed 
in Cashmere, 1885. 

' Terrible as this list seems, the total but little exceeds 
the havoc wrought by the single Bengal famine of 1866. 
There would be little difficulty in proving that drought, 
with the consequent famine, has proved the most terrible 
agent of destruction known to man ; and yet it is one that 
facilities for rapid transit should render least destructive. 
Scientific men have within forty years made efforts to 
keep a sort of catalogue of shocks ; but the frequency of 
earthquakes has rendered this a profitless task. Great 
ones are long remembered ; but as for numbering the 
minor shocks, one might as well count rainfalls ; several 



586 



GREAT DISASTERS. 




EARTHQUAKE IN SPAIN. 



EARTHQUAKES IN TROPICAL AMERICA. 587 

occur every day ; and it is only when unusually destruc- 
tive, like extraordinary tempests, that they attract any 
attention ; so that their being recorded depends even more 
upon location than upon actual force. 

All the phenomena of volcanoes and earthquakes point 
us to one conclusion : that the earth may in time become 
as dead and deserted as the moon. The telescope shows 
the latter to be thickly dotted with volcanic craters, whose 
immensity, in comparison with those of our own globe, is 
astounding; yet all are extinct. It is not probable that' 
the interior of our earth is molten ; and we have seen 
that fractures and subsidence, caused by gradual cooling, 
seem to be the main cause of the local phenomena of vol- 
canoes and earthquakes. As the ages roll on, these weak 
places may become still higher ; and the belt of warm 
climate will grow narrower and narrower. Cooling at the 
present rate, 2,500,000,000 years will be necessary to ren- 
der it as lifeless as the moon. 

" As the cooling progresses, a sheet of snow and ice, 
from north and south, will descend from the mountains 
upon the table-lands and valleys, driving before it life and 
civilization, and covering forever the cities and nations 
that it meets on its passage. All life and human activity 
will press insensibly toward the inter-tropical zone. The 
great cities of the world will fall asleep in succession un- 
der their eternal shroud. During very many ages, equa- 
torial humanity will undertake arctic expeditions to find 
again under the ice the place of Paris, Lyons, Bordeaux, 
and Marseilles. The sea-coasts will have changed, 
and the geographical map of the earth will have been 
transformed. No one will live and breathe, except in the 
equatorial zone, up to the day when the last family, near- 
ly dead with cold and hunger, will sit on the shore of the 
last sea, in the rays of the sun, which will thereafter shine 



588 GREAT DISASTERS. 

here on a dead, cold earth, revolving, like a satellite moon, 
about a sun unseen by mortal eyes, and distributing to an 
extinguished planet a useless heat." So will end the his- 
tory of our planet and its great disasters. 

" All worldly shapes shall melt in gloom, 
The sun himself must die, 
Before this mortal shall assume 
Its immortality! 
I saw a vision in my sleep, 
That gave my spirit strength to sweep 
Adown the gulf of time ! 
I saw the last of human mold 
That shall creation's death behold, 
As Adam saw her prime ! 

The sun's eye had a sickly glare, 
The earth with age was wan ; 
The skeletons of nations were 
Around that lonely man ! 
Some had expired in light — the brands 
Still rusted in their bony hands. 
In plague and famine some ! 
Earth's cities had no sound or tread, 
And ships were drifting with the dead, 
To shores where all was dumb ! 

Yet prophet-like that lone one stood 

With dauntless words and high, 

That shook the sere leaves from the wood 

As if a storm passed by ! 

Saying,' We are twins in death, proud Sun, 

Thy face is cold, thy race is run, 

'Tis Mercy bids thee go : 

For thou ten thousand years 

Hast seen the tide of human tears 

That shall no longer flow." 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

PREDICTION AND PREVENTION. 

" Fain would th' ephemeral pigmies then aspire 
To drive, like Phaethon, the sun's coach of fire, 
To grapple with the lightning in the sky, 
Or with the restless winds abroad to fly. 
Not all the bolts of Jove, nor Phoebus' wrath, 
May fright them from their wild, self-chosen path. 
Though poplars wave above ten thousand graves, 
And myriad Icari lie beneath the waves, 
The rest, as once the Titans, still press on, 
And strive to thrust the great gods from their throne." 

cJjvVER since man has dwelt upon the earth, there has 
-L{ been a constant effort, not merely to foretell the fu- 
ture, but to control it. So strong is man's faith in his own 
capacity, that wizards, jugglers, fakirs and tricksters, and 
necromancers have always found their vocation a lucrative 
one. It is easy to make one's living by imposing upon the 
credulity of the public. Not merely the American peo- 
ple, but every other people, like to be humbugged. So 
strong is the tendency to gullibility, that the most extra- 
ordinary pretensions are the most readily credited. The 
capability of the public to judge in such cases is well illus- 
trated by the Grecian story of the famous mimic, whose 
imitation of the grunt of a pig was so perfect, that thou- 
sands came to witness his performance. A countryman 
remarked that he could do still better, and, concealing a 
pig under his coat, he stole upon the stage. Pinching the 
animal's ear, the pig squealed violently, but the audience 
hissed the squeak as a miserable fiasco. Whereat the 
countryman produced the pig, and left the audience pon- 
dering the situation. 

589 



590 GREAT DISASTERS. 

The same tendency causes men to desire to attribute un- 
usual appearances to causes beyond the domain of natural 
law. The savage finds thunder and lightning in the dis- 
charge of a gun ; mysterious magic in a telescope; down- 
right sorcery in quinine; witchcraft and incantation in a 
written prescription. If one, a little shrewder than his 
fellows, after long study of an ant's nest, conceive the idea 
that they have a regularly constituted community, with a 
queen at the head, he needs only to suggest such a thing 
to his neighbors, to be set down as having communications 
with the Ant Queen ; and he may readily aspire to the 
chieftainship, thence to be known as the Ant Chief. Im- 
agination is so much easier than observation. Doubtless 
old Numa's thoughtful air in his daily retreat, gave rise to 
the tale that he was in consultation with the nymph of a 
fountain. Any one who had devoted an hour each day to 
gazing pensively into a stream, might have achieved alike 
reputation, as the Hindoo fakir is held in high repute for 
sanctity, because he preserves strict silence and gazes for 
years at the end of his nose. 

So when men achieve new results by natural means, it 
is preferred to assume otherwise. Good Roger Bacon in- 
vented gunpowder by witchcraft. The early chemists 
were in league with the Evil One. Faust and Gutenberg 
sold their souls to the devil, in order to get Bibles printed. 
The Magdeburg physicist, who made a water barometer in 
which a wooden figure rose or fell as the atmosphere va- 
ried, was the devil's own child. Cows sickened and died 
at the will of shrivelled dames who rode through the air 
on broomsticks. 

Foreknowledge is always confounded with foreordina- 
tion. The weather prophet is transformed into a weather- 
maker. The myth of Aeolus is thus explained. Once a 
king of the Lipari Isles, by careful observation of the 



PREDICTION AND PREVENTION. 591 

vapor cloud over Stromboli lie was enabled to announce 
changes of weather a day or two in advance, as every 
observant man in that region can do to-day. The simple 
subjects attributed his knowledge to supernatural powers, 
and after his death perpetuated the story of Aeolus, the 
king of the winds, who dwelt in a cave in one of the 
islands. 

In the time of Elijah, the prophets of Baal were confi- 
dent of procuring rain by howling, cutting and slashing; 
while Ahab believed Elijah was responsible for the 
drought. The negro and the red man to-day show the 
same characteristics in this respect. The negro rain-maker 
makes fetich ; the red chief, " big medicine," to bring 
rains. The reputed success of each is proportioned to his 
shrewdness in recognizing tokens of change in the 
weather. 

The great white man is often little better. While no 
longer trusting in the power of any one to control the 
weather, he has set up a god of false science, whom all 
must bow down to and worship. True knowledge is often 
flouted and scouted ; but every one who would attract 
attention must assume at least the appearance of learn- 
ing. College degrees are bought and sold at reason- 
able prices. No questions asked. The dancing-master is 
professor. The pugilist has become professor. The man 
who fiddles for beer in the corner saloon is professor. 
Weep, O Minerva ! 

So any one who wishes especial importance to be at- 
tached to his utterances, needs but assume a title, or a few 
mystic letters. Every great catastrophe produces a plenti- 
ful brood of them. As soon as the Charleston earthquake 
alarmed the country, it was announced that a grave " Prof." 
had predicted it. He was the hero of the hour. Interview- 
ers flocked from many quarters. For weeks the words of 



592 GREAT DISASTERS. 

"Prof." ,were as ointment poured out. The papers gave 

him great space — published sketches of his career. So 
much adulation was too much for human nature ; besides, 
he owed a duty to the public. A man so gifted should 
continue to give warning of impending dangers. He did 
so. They didn't materialize. The " Prof." has had lit- 
tle attention for three years. 

The Louisville tornado afforded other cases. A woman 
in the west predicted a combined deluge and earthquake, 
with other minor horrors on the side, as prepared for the 
Pacific coast. Some of the gullible people sold out at great 
sacrifice, that they might lose as little as possible by the 
greatest cyclone and earthquake of the century. Others 
drew up a formal petition to the Governor, calling upon 
him to proclaim a day of supplication and fasting for the 
doomed cities of Oakland, San Francisco and Alameda. 
The end of the world drew nigh, and these three cities, as 
eminently wicked, would be first punished ; after which 
Chicago and Milwaukee would suffer. 

Bands of believers met and wrestled mightily in prayer 
that the unparalled horrors might be averted. They were 
eminently successful. 

Another came forward and announced that the entire 
Mississippi valley was to be visited with a cataclysm, such 
as no man had ever conceived. The floods were to break 
all the levees, wash away everything that was within a 
hundred miles of the stream, tear up the delta built by 
the deposits of ages, and leave the site of New Orleans at 
the bottom of the sea. At this writing the Crescent City 
is in hourly expectation of its doom. 

Yet another seer, warned of the Lord in a vision, per- 
haps, has just declared the fate of the Atlantic coast. Be- 
fore the end of the century there will be an earthquake 
such as no man ever before has known. The fountains 



PREDICTION AND PREVENTION. 593 

of the great deep are to be broken up. All the cities of 
the New England coast will be desolated by immense sea 
waves. Manhattan Island, with the city of New York, 
and Long Island, are to be sunk to the bottom of the sea. 
Our hearts fail us for fear for the things that are coming 
upon the earth. Let us hope that perad venture there be 
yet five righteous men in Sodom, 

Some years ago great sensation was occasioned by the 
discovery of Mother Shipton's prophecy among some old 
English manuscripts. It began : 

" Carriages shall without horses go, 
And accidents till the world with woe ; 
Around the world men's thoughts shall fly, 
In the twinkling of an eye." 

After a few statements of this sort, it closed by saying : 

" The world to an end shall come 
In eighteen hundred and eighty-one." 

Great was the fright of not a few timid believers. Many 
arranged their affairs for the end of the world. Some, as 
the Millerites have several times done, prepared their as- 
cension robes. Finally, the whole thing proved to be a 
hoax. A wag had endeavored to amuse himself at the 
expense of the public. 

Such are fair specimens of predictions that continually 
appear in the newspapers. Certain men will always en- 
deavor to astonish the ignorant by their words and works. 
Seldom do sober-minded people pay the least attention to 
them. As for minor changes in weather, they are so con- 
stant, and so limited in area, that, as stated elsewhere, any 
one is safe for announcing the character of the weather 
for any day in the year. From a score of places, he 
could obtain testimonials of the correctness of his prog- 
nostications ; while nine score more, if they spoke, might 
declare him altogether mistaken. 

But many will ask in all seriousness, if there is no 

38 



594 GREAT DISASTERS. 

means of prediction upon which all may depend. Is any 
more reliance to be placed upon the prognostications of the 
Signal Service than upon those of the self-constituted 
prophets ? 

A brief statement of the principles relied upon will be 
satisfactory on this point. 

Our weather bureau was established in 1870. Such 
organizations are maintained, at the public expense, in 
Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Australia, Russia, 
India, Algeria, and Japan. Several smaller countries 
share in the expense and benefits. Men long trained in 
the work grow more reliable. Each must first master the 
topography and the prevailing movements of the atmos- 
phere of any region, ere he can presume to know any- 
thing of the probable changes. 

How extremely important a knowledge of the country 
is, will be understood when it is remembered that moun- 
tain ranges may turn aside great storms, and hills of any 
considerable size may modify small ones. And in general, 
storm paths are so narrow, in comparison with the whole 
country, that the slightest variation at the start may be 
very important at the end of six hundred or seven hun- 
dred miles — or a day's travel. So, announcing twenty- 
four hours beforehand the exact locality a storm may 
reach, is really a very delicate piece of work. If a tyro 
should announce rain for North Georgia, he might be as- 
tonished to find a difference of twenty-one per cent, 
between Atlanta and Augusta. He would find in Ten- 
nessee sixteen per cent, difference between Knoxville and 
Nashville ; or twelve and a half per cent, in Iowa between 
Dubuque and Davenport. 

The Signal Service does not endeavor to forecast entire- 
ly new conditions so much as to give warning of storms 
already on the way. It can not safely say where a storm 



PREDICTION AND PREVENTION. 595 

will arise ; but it can declare with tolerable certainty the 
path a storm will pursue after having once started. 

Yet, there are certain signs of rain that can be of use to 
the public. Americans, as a rule, pay less attention to 
the actions of the animal kingdom at change of weather 
than other nations ; and the lower animals detect changes 
of weather more quickly than man. Slugs and snails 
often leave their crannies, and endeavor to find some drier 
retreat at the approach of rain. Swallows fly lower; 
chiefly because the insects they pursue abandon the upper 
air. Crickets and grasshoppers become less noisy, and 
seek snug retreats. Fish leap more frequently from the 
water. The oft-praised tree-frog seems not to have de- 
served the confidence placed in him as a barometer. 

Quatremere Disjonval, when made a prisoner of war by 
the Dutch, made a careful study of the habits of the 
house spider, while in confinement. His observations 
played an important part in the war. " General Pichegru, 
being prevented by the mild weather from carrying out his 
intention of invading that country, was about to retire 
with his army from the Dutch frontier, when Disjonval 
found means to inform him that, from the signs he had 
' observed in his spiders, a severe frost was sure to take 
place in the next ten days. Pichegru trusted to the prog- 
nostic : the frost came in time. Holland was conquered, 
and Disjonval released from his prison." 

Voigt asserts that the spider is so reliable a barometer 
because of its anatomy : the long, slender, unmailed legs 
being peculiarly sensitive to atmospheric changes. That 
is, when Madam Spider finds herself with a touch of 
rheumatism, she wraps herself in a thicker blanket and 
takes to her den. In fine weather the garden spiders are 
much more plentiful ; and the tiny gossamer spiders also 
are numerous, and fly fit greater heights. 



596 GREAT DISASTERS. 

These serve to illustrate the class of phenomena most 
relied upon by those in every land who must spend much 
time in the open air. The scientist may understand the 
laws of winds and rains : but the farmer, the shepherd, the 
fisherman, and sailor, to whom every phase of weather 
means much, can, relying upon the actions of the lower 
animals, detect approaching changes as readily, in many 
cases, as the Signal Service ; and far more readily or cor- 
rectly than the quasi learned theorist whose stock in trade 
is a hobby and an unlimited quantity of assumption. 

It is one thing to understand law ; it is quite another 
to be able to make practical application of it. Franklin 
identified lightning with electricity ; a century passed be- 
fore practical use of the electric light resulted. We know 
now the general laws of air currents, but little application 
of them has been made. 

As to the possibility of controlling the winds, no one 
has thus far had the temerity to propose it. But that 
rainfall can be partially controlled is well known. The 
heaviest rains occur in forest areas ; and in turn, the mat- 
ted roots of the forest and jungle retard the descent of the 
rain into the water courses, and hinder the washing away 
of the soil. Floods have become more sudden and de- 
structive in the lumber regions since the timber has been 
cut away, while the actual rainfall is not so great. So a 
number of our Western States require a u homesteader " 
to plant a tree claim. 

A bold genius has recently asserted that we may pro- 
duce rain at will, by sending up balloons loaded with 
dynamite or other powerful explosives, and then firing 
them. It has been observed that almost every great mod- 
ern battle has been followed by a heavy rainfall ; aud the 
idea is, that the continued explosions have had much to 



PREDICTION AND PREVENTION. 597 

do with them. Frequenters of Fourth of July picnics 
will readily vouch for the correctness of the theory. 

Doubtless a more effective plan would be simply to ap- 
ply the well known first principle of air-currents and 
storms — heated air ; but this would be immensely expen- 
sive. Every year sees exemplifications of it, however, in 
the heavy rains that follow the great forest fires or prairie 
fires of our own land. Natives of tropical regions fre- 
quently burn the jungle at the close of the dry season; 
and the unusual heating of large areas in this way doubt- 
less has much to do with hastening the advent of rain. 

The expedient of firing the sawgrass ponds is frequently 
resorted to in Florida, and has been brought to the notice 
of the public in official meteorological reports. It is di- 
rectly in accordance with the principle of restoration of 
the balance of forces, whereby a long heated term is fol- 
lowed by unusually heavy rains. 

But, in contending with subterranean forces, man is 
hitherto balked. Numbers of instruments exist for 
measuring the force and direction of earthquake shocks, 
but these can be made of little practical use ; for we have 
seen that the vibrations travel from forty to one hundred 
and fifty miles a minute, according to the nature of the 
soil. Hence, could we know a certain shock would travel 
around the world, it would not be possible, after it was 
first felt, to send warning ahead in time to be of any 
especial value. But we have seen that unusual disturb- 
ances of this sort are confined to certain regions, and are 
of constant recurrence ; while in other lands, they are al- 
most unknown. So any one understands pretty well 
what risks he runs in any particular district. 

The Chinese were the first to invent a seismometer, or 
instrument for ascertaining the force and direction of any 
chock. Their apparatus consists of an upright pillar 






598 GREAT DISASTERS. 

bearing a number of dragons' heads — each one holding a 
ball in its mouth. So any slight tilting or vibration of 
the pillar would cause a ball to drop on the side toward 
which the shock travelled. The distance to which the 
ball was thrown served as a rude measure of the force. 

Equally simple is Mallet's contrivance — a number of 
cylinders of equal heights and different bases, placed upon 
a sanded surface. The more violent the shock, the larger 
the cylinder thrown down. 

But observations of these vibrations, to be of use, must 
take note of the myriad tremors that will escape ordinary 
perceptions, or the powers of such rude instruments as the 
above. There are several sorts now used. Prof. Palmieri, 
of the Vesuvius Observatory, uses a delicate instru- 
ment, which records the slightest tremor on a dial-plate. 
The Italians have also applied the microphone to this 
work. The delicacy of this instrument may be imagined, 
when it is known that by its means a fly can be heard 
walking on the floor. So the slightest subterranean noise 
may be heard. 

These instruments have taught us that the minor tre- 
mors increase in number and intensity as any unusual 
disturbance of Vesuvius approaches ; just as the Signal 
Service can detect the gathering of a storm ere it actually 
bursts. Remembering also Bravard's warning of Men- 
doza, in the last chapter, it is clear that in certain regions 
such observations can be made of practical value to the 
people at large. 

One of the most ingenious apparatus for observing the 
vibrations of the soil is that constructed by M. d'Abbadie, 
at his observatory near the Pyrenees. A conical cavity 
forty-six feet deep is excavated in the solid rock. At the 
bottom is a basin of mercury. A long-focus lens over 
this reflects upon the surface of the ground the image of 



Prediction and pre\ 'i:m I 

the metal below. The slightest tremor is carefully exam- 
ined by a microscope. In short, this ingenious French- 
man has applied the reflecting telescope to the observation 
of the interior of the earth. 

After all, the chief precautions must be of a different type- 
As already noticed, long observation has taught the Japa- 
nese and others that their safety depends mainly upon the 
construction of houses of the lightest type; when the sea 
wave is more to be dreaded than the shock. This is the 
general principle of building now adopted in countries 
where earthquakes are frequent ; and doubtless the earth- 
quake is partially responsible for the fact that many intel- 
ligent savage races have made no progress in architecture. 

It should be noted, however, that the ancients believed 
that deep wells were a safeguard against earthquakes; 
such is the expression of several ancient writers. And in 
this connection we may mention the remarkable case of 
Quito, in Ecuador. Here we have a city of magnificent 
cathedrals, public edifices, and other lofty buildings, 
which have not in three centuries been overthrown by an 
earthquake. Yet it lies on the plateau on which stood 
Riobamba, where such terrible destruction was wrought 
in 1 7' >4, and at the base of the great volcano of Pichincha. 
It has been shaken time and again more severely than 
towns in the vicinity that have been totally destroyed. 
Yet it remains intact, and the people have an indifference 
to earthquakes that is astonishing. They attribute their 
safety to the fact of having deep cellars under every 
house. When we remember that tropical races are not, as 
a rule, a cellar building people, it may be that the idea is 
worthy of serious consideration. But many idle races of 
the tropics might, in lower grounds, merely exchange the 
results of an occasional earthquake for malaria-breeding 
pools. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

THE REIGN OF LAW. 

" Man is born on a battle-field. Eound him to rend 
Or resist, tbe dread Powers he displaces, attend 
By the cradle which Nature, amid the stern shocks 
That have shattered creation, and shapened it, rocks. 
He leaps with a wail into being; and lo! 
His own mother, fierce Nature herself, is his foe : 
Her whirlwinds are roused into wrath o'er his head ; 
'Neath his feet roll her earthquakes; her solitudes spread 
To daunt him ; her forces dispute his command ; 
Her snows fall to freeze him ; her suns burn to brand; 
Her seas yawn to engulf him ; her rocks rise to crush; 
And the lion and leopard, allied, lurk to rush 

On their startled invader. ******** 
Not a truth has to art or to science been given, 
But brows have ached for it, and souls toiled and striven; 
And many have striven, and many have failed, 
And many died, slain by the truth they assailed." 

/T\HE original condition of the human race was not one 
J- of knowledge. When the first man and the first 
monkey were created and finished, the monkey knew as 
much as the man. Both found themselves in a world of 
forces, of the nature of which, beyond what was revealed to 
their native instincts, they knew nothing at all. The man's 
superiority lay not in knowledge, but in capacity to know. 
Man learned the forces and facts of Nature by experi- 
ence. He learned them at the cost to himself of fear and 
pain and toil and death. He plucked one fruit and found 
it wholesome; another, and found it bitter ; another, and 
found it deadly. The surviving son learned to avoid the 
mistakes of his father. 

Man was not long in gaining a knowledge of his en- 

600 



THE REIGN" OF LAW. 601 

vironment, enough at least, if he would not be too ven- 
turesome, to conserve in some degree his happiness and 
life. He learned that fire will burn, that water will 
drown, that storms will blow, that floods will overwhelm, 
that winter will come, and that his life is dependent on 
continual quest and avoidance. But Nature held innum- 
erable secrets which he did not know ; many, which, even 
to-day, he has not learned. In proportion as he should 
become acquainted with these, he would be master of a 
situation, which, at the first, so nearly mastered him. He 
might acquire a magnificent fortune, if he would only 
work for it ; accordingly, we are told that his Maker ad- 
monished him to "subdue and have dominion." 

Whether man has been six thousand years, or sixty 
thousand, in learning the little that he now knows, no one 
can tell; but during these years of his primary tuition he 
could not through knowledge have the mastery of Nature, 
for knowledge was too meager. It was well, therefore, 
that he should, in the meanwhile, have a partial mastery 
through faith. Ignorant of natural forces, or without 
means of avoidance, is it any wonder that he should fly for 
refuge to the Supernatural? Accordingly, God was his 
"refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." 
Believing himself watched and defended by infinite power 
and love, he could " run through a troop or leap over a 
wall;" he could fancy himself "immortal till his work was 
done," safe on the battle-field as in his chamber ; he was 
not afraid of the " pestilence that walketh in darkness, 
nor of the destruction that wasteth at noonday;" of earth- 
quake and storm and fire he was not afraid, for these were 
the ministers of Heaven's will — if not to be avoided, then 
to be accepted with submission and trust. 

Such faith in the presence and interposition of the 
Supernatural was instructive to the young world, and as 



602 GREAT DISASTERS. 

necessary as its mother's milk is to a babe. It gave com- 
fort and repose and strength, for its subject felt that " un- 
derneath and round about him were the everlasting 
arms." It made heroes of cowardly men on battle-fields; 
heroines of weak women in humble homes. It produced 
the sublimest characters of history ; it vanquished death. 
Sustained by it, it is literally true that men "subdued 
kingdoms, wrought righteousness, stopped the mouths of 
lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of 
the sword ; out of weakness were made strong, waxed 
valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens." 

The sudden loss of this faith from earth would be a 
calamity. It would be as though the sun and moon had 
been darkened, and the stars had gone out in the sky. 
Till men know more of Nature, they must continue to 
lean on the Supernatural. They may never do this less 
than they do it now ; but they will do it more intelligently. 

As the child, with growing strength, is weaned from the 
the breast, so increasing knowledge tends to the destruc- 
tion of faith. It may be stated as a law that, other 
things being equal, faith in the manifestation of the Su- 
pernatural — in the miraculous — is most facile to him who 
knows the least. Accordingly, the men of highest attain- 
ments have commonly the least of this kind of faith. 
They still believe in something back of Nature ; some 
cause of Nature — in the Supernatural — but they expect 
nothing from it outside the lines of natural law. They 
know nothing of miracle or special providence. They see 
everywhere cause and effect ; the one not present with- 
out the other; the perpetual grinding of machinery and 
the wretch mangled who is caught between the wheels ; 
the wisest and best of men, pillars of state or prophets of 
the Lord, crushed as surely as the vilest and the meanest. 
All the prayers of God's people will not make rivers flow 



THE REIGN OF LAW. 603 

back to their fountains, nor turn the Sahara into a sea ; 
nor thaw the ice at the poles, nor relieve the famine, nor 
stop the pestilence, nor level a single mole-hill, nor make 
one hair white or black. The whole universe is held in 
the chain of cause and effect, with link joined to link for- 
ever and ever. The Supernatural may be the electric en- 
ergy that thrills along the endless chain, but it never quits 
the conductor to find out new paths. What it does to- 
day, it did a thousand years ago, and will do a thousand 
years hence. So speaks and so believes the student of 
Nature. We may be extremely reluctant to admit his 
teaching, and yet the facts seem to be altogether with him. 
The evidence is overwhelming that men everywhere, good 
and bad alike, are dealing directly, not with the Supernat- 
ural, but, with Nature — with law ; nothing but natural 
law. If any hesitate to accept this saying, we do not press 
them, for the time has not yet come when they could ac- 
cept it with safety. The babe will cling to the mother's 
breast as long as he needs it, and sometimes longer ; but 
by and by he will abandon it of himself. 

A world of iron law is not our ideal world, though the 
evidence grows that it is the real one. We like law well 
enough when it defends us ; we are not pleased with it 
when it chastises us. At such a moment we would flee to 
some friendlier power. We would go to God and tell Him 
that Nature is not treating us well, and that we desire His 
interposition. It is because we are afraid of Nature that 
we take so much interest in the Supernatural. But what 
reason have we to think that the Supernatural is better 
than Nature ? 

The Supernatural has had more prophets than Nature, 
and will doubtless continue to have them. Far be it from 
us to forbid them. Let them prophecy in the name of the 
Lord. Let them "strengthen the weak hands and con- 



()04 GREAT DISASTERS. 

firm the feeble knees ; " inspire courage in adversity, calm- 
ness in the face of death. 

But we should like to remind them that if they have 
done much good, they have also done some evil. 

They have greatly obstructed a lesson, the most impor- 
tant for men to know ; a lesson which they must learn at 
last, whether they like to learn it or not ; a lesson which 
they need to learn as soon as they can, because certain 
knowledge is better to shape the life than is uncertain 
faith ; a lesson that will bring them face to face with the 
real conditions of their present and eternal well-being, — 
we mean this lesson, that the Supernatural, the Primal 
Fountain of Force, goes forth only in streams of natural 
law. So far as can be shown, it manifests itself in no 
other way. Contrary to this, the prophets of the Super- 
natural have often encouraged man to believe that he shall 
not reap as he has sown ; that he may sow to the flesh, and 
yet reap to the spirit ; that outside and alongside the ma- 
chinery of law is another and more masterful machinery 
of Providence and Grace ; that the latter is ordained a 
sure corrective and deliverer from the evils of the former ; 
that so almighty is this invisible, ever-active and presid- 
ing energy, that it can, by a momentary display, transform 
the most inveterate sinner into a saint, and crown him 
with everlasting happiness, although, meanwhile, it su- 
pinely leaves the innocent child the victim of Adam's 
fall, to sink into the flames of hell. Our sense of justice 
is shocked, virtue is dismayed, vice is emboldened, and the 
so-called scheme of grace, less pitiful and just than that 
of nature, is seen to differ from it chiefly in this, that it 
offers greater encouragement to sin. 

Nature throughout all her regions proclaims the domin- 
ion of law. She has incessantly denounced woe to its 
violator. A million times has she shown us the del in- 



THE REIGN OF LAW. 605 

quent writhing under the scourge. Never once has the 
transgressor escaped. His transgression, 

" Like a staunch murderer steady to bis purpose, 
Follows him through every lane of life, 
Nor misses once the track," 

and soon or late he is overtaken. Privation or pain is 
the inexorable penalty. Nature with trumpet voices 
shouts incessantly, " Whatsoever a man soweth that shall 
he also reap." 

The dominion of law is shown in the punishment of 
intentional disobedience — what men call sin. Its natural 
consequences are remorse, degradation, and spiritual death. 
A being of loftiest make is reduced to the likeness of a vile 
and venomous thing, crawling on its belly through the 
dust. Higher enjoyments are exchanged for such as are 
brutish and vile, — so to speak, the life of a humming-bird, 
flitting through all sunny climes and scenes and feeding 
on nectar, is exchanged for the life of a swine, feeding on 
offal, and wallowing in the mire. And never once is a 
wound made by the lash of law healed without a scar ; in 
other words, transgression leaves its permanent impress on 
the soul, and the transgressor, despite the incantations of 
priest or prophet, finds himself poorer forever. He has 
forfeited the peace of them that do well. He has peopled 
the past with bitter memories; the future with gloomy 
forebodings. Reason untrammeled, loyal to the truth and 
pursuing it with success, has been substituted with reason 
fettered with chains of prejudice and vile affection, loving 
and making a lie. 

Habit, with every successive stroke of action, has riv- 
eted these chains more firmly, till the victim is fast bound 
hand and foot, and delivered over to despair. The order of 
downward progress is, transgression, spiritual pain, stupor, 
insensibility, permanent degradation, which is spiritual 



606 GREAT DISASTERS. 

death. In all this, there is no immediate or special judg- 
ment of God ; no working of the Supernatural apart from 
natural law. If there were no God at all, while the con- 
stitution of man and the universe should remain as they 
are, the consequences to the transgressor would, in no wise, 
be altered. The sinner has nothing to fear but natural 
law, and sooner or later he finds this terrible enough. 

But the punishment of sin is not the most impressive 
proof of the dominion of law. We feel that the willful 
transgressor is entitled to the punishment of his deed ; 
hence, even when his punishment is severest, he fails to 
command our fullest sympathy. That the organization of 
Nature should be such as systematically to afilict the sin- 
ner, is not more than our sense of justice would prompt us 
to expect. 

But the punishment of ignorance offers a more impress- 
ive spectacle — a more striking exhibition of the dominion 
of law. It seems that ignorance, especially when abso- 
lutely unavoidable, might be pleaded in bar of punish- 
ment ; but nature obviously does not accept the plea. Nor 
does it avail us in this emergency to appeal from Nature to 
the Supernatural. The Supernatural refuses to entertain 
the aj)peal — positively declines to interfere— and natural 
law is left to take its course. The ignorant must suffer as « 
surely as the guilty, and often his suffering is not less se- 
vere. For the slightest mistakes men forfeit happiness or 
life, — mistakes not of themselves alone, but mistakes of 
others. The sin or the error belongs to one man ; the 
weight of the suffering often falls to another. Even our 
benevolence seems to be punished ; for quite frequently 
the effort to help others brings disaster to ourselves — to 
our fortunes, to our families, our lives. Seeking to rescue 
another from fire or water, from the assassin or the robber ; 
from the domestic tyrant or the foreign invader, we lose 



THE REIGN OF LAW. 607 

life, and, for luck of our help, our children are unedu- 
cated, exposed to moral evil, neglected, turned out of 
doors. The very tramp whom, for pity, we took in from 
the street, robs us, or murders us. Meanwhile the Super- 
natural beholds and makes no sign — gives no indication 
that it is at all concerned. 

The suffering which comes through unavoidable ignor- 
ance, or which is visited upon the innocent through the 
deeds of the guilty, is, in its sum total, appalling and un- 
speakable. It is a dark and fathomless ocean, whose waves 
have been incessantly beating on the shores of this dream- 
world since time began. Every drop of this mighty ocean has 
been wrung out through the operation of natural law. An 
omniscient eye, every hour of the day and night, through 
countless ages, has gazed into these waters of anguish, and 
has declined to lessen their quantity by a single atom. No 
order from the Supernatural has gone forth to countermand 
any decree of Nature. Man has stood alone, grappling 
with his antagonist ; and though he has cried incessantly, 
heaven has left him to his fate. Could there be a more 
awful demonstration of the supremacy of natural law? 

Nature slays in babyhood one-third of all the children 
that are born into the world, just because they have not 
strength to resist her ; meanwhile she carefully preserves 
such tyrants as Tiberius to finish their three score years 
and ten, though every added year means the murder of a 
thousand of the best men and women to be found in a wide 
empire. Why does not the Supernatural rise up from his 
place and smite the tyrant to the earth ? Is it not plain 
that we are dealing with natural forces alone ? 

For six thousand vears — God knows how long — Africa 
has been a hell, than which perhaps no man need ever 
fear a worse. If the pulpit may convince a sinner that as 
a result of his ways he shall be turned black, body and 



608 GREAT DISASTERS. 

soul, and sent to Africa, there perpetually to renew his 
life as often as it is extinguished by the superstition and 
iiendishness of his fellows, and the said sinner do not then 
begin to live more wisely, it will be useless to talk to hi in 
of fire and brimstone. Upon this horrible theater of ac- 
tion perhaps 600,000,000 of human beings have been pro- 
jected in every century, coming without their will to a 
heritage of nakedness and superstition and barbarity ab- 
solutely prohibitive of happiness here or hope for the 
hereafter ; and yet there has been no interposition of the 
Supernatural in their behalf. The laws of birth and death 
preside, just as if there were no power above us that cares 
for either. 

It is one of the ordinances of nature that life without 
nourishment shall not be prolonged. There is reason to 
believe that God would see the last man starved from off 
this plauet, and the planet itself plunged onward into the 
void, ten an tl ess forever, before he would command that 
stones should be made bread. Not twenty years ago, 
18,000,000 in the northern provinces of China starved to 
death in a single year. What horrible anxiety of hollow- 
eyed mothers for gasping babes; what hideous deaths 
day by day ; what acres of unburied corpses ; what throngs 
about religious altars, wringing their hands, and screaming 
to the heavens, till it would seem that the agony of their 
prayers would have shaken the very stars from the sky ; 
and yet there was none that heard, nor any that regarded. 
Not a single stone was turned into bread ; not a single life 
was sustained without food ; and if any survived, it was 
the heartless brother who wrested the last morsel from his 
weak and dying sister. A ghastly instance of the domin- 
ion of law, attested by 1 8,000,000 of dead witnesses. Can 
we look upon such a scene and ever again expect a petty 
interposition in behalf of an individual when it has been 



THE REIOS OF LAW. 

denied to a nation, and rica has 

waited for it through counl 

infinity. Every fa - 
ror recorded in thic suprem- 

of law — a warning to men that if they would shun 
the effect they must avoid the cause ; that they mo - 

see the laws and attributes of nature, and provide; or thev 
must perish. Strange that after ages of such awful 
teaching man is yet a fool — too lazy. I -■ ipid to 

: vigorously fighting against knowledge when 
every interest :..- - il and body are ai ving 

supinely, " it makes no difference whether you know much 
or little, or what you believe, provided only you are sin- 
cere ; " and in the same breath dishonestly hearkening to 
rejudices or his passions; becoming a compound of 
ignorance, superstition and self-will, which first defies and 
rouses the powers of Nature, and then flies howling to :he 
Supernatural for deliverance. When we think how little 
man has learned, notwithstanding the - of his 

schooling, we are less disposed to accuse the harshness of 
Nature's administration. 

Our reflections on the course of Nature have not proved 
that there is no God, but rather that there is. The order, 
regularity and certainty of natural forces indicat- a 
changeless, exhaustless fountain from whence those forces 
flow. Amid the ceaseless mutations of the universe, this 
primal energy seems to be the one thing in which there is 
" no variableness, neither shadow of turning." It flows 
on resistless along the same channels from age to age. It 
overwhelms whatever lies in its path. It would sweep 
away all the millions of earth like a grain of sand. It 
would sweep the very stars from the sky. Nothing can 
arrest it ; nothing change its course. It accommodates it- 
self to nobody ; all must be accommodated to it, or suffer 

39 



610 GREAT DISASTERS. 

disaster. It is inexorable, like " that rock, upon which if 
a man fall, he shall be broken, but if it fall upon him, it 
will grind him to powder." It is not man who is run- 
ning this puny world ; it is a changeless, eternal Power. 
No fear that any human combinations in capitols or tem- 
ples will swerve this infinite energy, or control it in the 
least. That which is according to its nature it will do, 
and it will do nothing else. It is absolute monarch, and 
woe to him who resists its sway. We are amazed, awed 
and subdued in the contemplation. We begin to feel 
that there is but one thing for us to do, and that is, to 
learn its ways and by increasing knowledge and obedi- 
ence, as rapidly as possible to put ourselves in accord 
with its goings-forth. 

Should we enter some vast factory where there are acres 
of floor-space, and wheels and cogs and pulleys and hands 
and machines of patterns innumerable, all propelled by a 
giant engine hidden away in the cellar; should we see all 
this wilderness of wheels moving in concert, and every 
machine turning out the work for which it was intended, 
we should neither doubt the existence of the power, nor 
the benevolence of the whole design : nor if presently we 
saw a workman, reaching after some fancied good, drawn 
between wheels and mangled, or a hundred ignorant or 
careless persons caught up and whirled round and round 
and dashed to death ; would we find any occasion to 
reverse our j udgment — to doubt either the existence of a 
controlling force, or its essential goodness? Rather we 
should be impressed with its terrible supremacy, and with 
the importance of seeking out the lines of its manifestation 
and learning to avoid a conflict. 

Law is not an entity, but only the mode of an entity ; 
not a thing existing, but the attribute of a thing ; not in 
itself a power, but the manner of tlw action of a power. 



THE REIGN OF LAW. 611 

When a power through a given cause produces a given 
effect, and the same effect from the same cause, this regu- 
larity of manifestation fulfills our idea of law. 

The great original energy must act with this perfect 
regularity — that is, it must govern by law, and that 
equally, whether this original energy be a thing only, or 
a person. In either case, we must accept it as uncreated, 
necessary, having a definite constitution or nature. In 
this power or person, natural laws are rooted, and from it 
they proceed, as rays of light from the sun. To arrest 
the rays, you must quench the luminary; to arrest the 
current forces of nature, you must stay their author. The 
goings-forth of power from this exhaustless fountain are 
necessary, ceaseless, changeless, resistless. If this foun- 
tain is an impersonal force, we can no more expect it, on 
any account, to relax its energy, than we can expect the 
engine in the cellar to stop because some wretch up stairs 
has been caught between the wheels. 

If it is personal, having the attributes of wisdom and 
goodness — which is the popular idea of God — still, from 
the very attributes with which it is invested, we must 
expect it to have all the uniformity, precision, and inex- 
orableness of a machine. Its mode of action must be the 
same in all cases that are alike, though the series be infi- 
nite, else there will be more or less than perfect wisdom or 
perfect goodness in some of the series. More would be 
impossible: less would impeach the power; hence, the 
action must be uniform and resistless. It must show the 
characteristics of law — nothing else but law. God can not 
consent to do something that is not perfectly wise and per- 
fectly good because He has been importuned so to do by 
fools, or because a creature is going to be crushed. There- 
fore, neither with Him — an infinitely wise and good being 
— nor with Nature'a iaws, which are but the effluence of 



612 GREAT DISASTERS. 

His nature, can there be any " variableness or shadow of 
turning." 

The general acceptance of this truth will mark a step 
forward in the progress of humanity. Such knowledge 
will largely displace the faith of the past and the present, 
but there will be a net gain. We have been looking for 
God outside of Nature ; but while some profess to have 
seen him, the majority have been weak in faith, or wholly 
unbelieving. When we learn to see God in nature, we 
shall see him every day. We shall then truly realize that 
"in him we live and move and have our being." We 
shall have substituted certainty in the governing power 
for something very like caprice. We shall not expect the 
Supernatural to forbid the Natural, any more than we shall 
expect the sun to quarrel with his beams. Knowing 
definitely what not to expect of God, we shall understand 
precisely what to expect from ourselves. We shall com- 
prehend more fully the Maker's meaning when He said, 
" Subdue and have dominion." 

Judaism alone, of all religions, took no cognizance of a 
future state. If man thoroughly adjusted himself to this 
world's laws, he needed not fear for the hereafter. There- 
in is the strongest proof of its divine origin. And along this 
line a thousand victories have been won — but much yet 
remains. The results of human folly are lessening daily 
as man progresses. The means of rational enjoyment have 
been already vastly increased, and there will be further 
enlargement. But men, not angels, must do the work. 
Moses and his people stood, the sea before, and Pharaoh 
and his hosts behind them. In this extremity, he lifted 
his hands and cried to heaven. The answer that came 
was hardly such as he expected, but it may be very sug- 
gestive to us : " Wherefore criest thou unto me ? Speak 
unto the children of Israel, that they go forward." 



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